paid at Candlemas, which is but a difficult matter to bring round even in the best of times?"

So he armed the fowler, and falconer, the footman, and the ploughman, at the home farm, with an old drunken cavaliering butler, who had served with the late Sir Richard under Montrose, and stunned the family nightly with his exploits at Kilsythe and Tippermoor, and who was the only man in the party that had the smallest zeal for the work in hand. In this manner, and by recruiting one or two latitudinarian poachers and black fishers, Mr. Harrison completed the quota of men which fell to the share of Lady Margaret Bellenden, as life-rentrix of the barony of Tillietudlum and others. But when the steward, on the morning of the eventful day, had mustered his troupe dorée before the iron grate of the tower, the mother of Cuddie the ploughman appeared, loaded with the jack-boots, buff coat, and other accoutrements which had been issued forth for the service of the day, and laid them before the steward, demurely assuring him, that whether it were the colic, or a qualm of conscience, she couldna tak upon her to decide; but sure it was, Cuddie had been in sair straits a' night, and she culdna say he was muckle better this morning. The finger of Heaven, she said, was in it; and her bairn should gang on nae sic errands. Pains, penalties, and threats of dismission, were denounced in vain; the mother was obstinate, and Cuddie, who underwent a domiciliary visitation for the purpose of verifying his state of body, could, or would answer only by deep groans. Mause, who had been an ancient domestic in the family,

was a sort of favourite with Lady Margaret, and presumed accordingly. Lady Margaret had herself set forth, and her authority could not be appealed to. In this dilemma, the good genius of the old butler suggested an expedient.

"He had seen mony a braw callant, far less than Guse Gibbie, fight brawly under Montrose. What for no take Guse Gibbie?"

This was a half-witted lad, of very small stature, who had a kind of charge of the poultry under the old hen wife; for in a Scottish family of that day there was a wonderful substitution of labour. This urchin, being sent for from the common field, was hastily muffled in the buff coat, and girded rather to than with the sword of a full grown man, his little legs plunged into jackboots, and a steel cap put upon his head, which seemed, from its size, as if they were going to extinguish him. Thus accoutred, he was hoisted, at his own earnest request, upon the tamest horse of the party; and prompted and supported by old Gudyill the butler, as his front file, he passed muster tolerably enough; the sheriff not caring to examine too closely the recruits of so well affected a person as Lady Margaret Bellenden.

*

"I see the duke's carriage in motion," said Gilbertscleugh, partaking at the moment an alarm common to all Lady Margaret's friends, when she touched upon the topic of the royal visit at the family mansion-" I see the duke's carriage in motion; I presume your ladyship will take your right or rank in leaving the field. May I be permitted to convoy your ladyship and Miss Bel

lenden home? Parties of the wild whigs have been abroad, and are said to insult and disarm the well affected who travel in small numbers."

"We thank you, cousin Gilbertscleugh," said Lady Margaret; "but as we shall have the escort of my own people, I trust we have less need than others to be troublesome to our friends. Will you have the goodness to order Harrison to bring up our people somewhat more briskly? He rides them towards us as if he were leading a funeral procession."

The gentleman in attendance communicated his lady's orders to the trusty steward.

Honest Harrison had his own reasons for doubting the prudence of this command; but, once issued and received, there was a necessity for obeying it. He set off, therefore, at a hard gallop, followed by the butler, in such a military attitude as became one who had served under Montrose, and with a look of defiance, rendered sterner and fiercer by the inspiring fumes of a gill of brandy, which he had snatched a moment to bolt to the king's health, and confusion to the Covenant, during the intervals of military duty. Unhappily this potent refreshment wiped away from the tablets of his memory the necessity of paying some attention to the distresses and difficulties of his rear file, Goose Gibbie. No sooner had the horses struck a canter, than Gibbie's jackboots, which the poor boy's legs were incapable of steadying, began to play alternately against the horse's flanks, and, being armed with long rowelled spurs, overcame the patience of the animal, which bounced and plunged, while poor

Gibbie's entreaties for aid never reached the ears of the too heedless butler, being drowned partly in the concave of the steel cap in which his head was immersed, and partly in the martial tune of the gallant Græmes, which Mr. Gudyill whistled with all his power of lungs.

The upshot was, that the steed speedily took the matter into his own hands, and, having gambolled hither and thither to the great amusement of all spectators, set off at full speed towards the huge family coach already described. Gibbie's pike, escaping from its sling, had fallen to a level direction across his hands, which, I grieve to say, were seeking dishonourable safety in as strong a grasp of the mane as their muscles could manage. His casque, too, had slipped completely over his face, so that he saw as little in front as he did in rear. Indeed, if he could, it would have availed him little in the circumstances; for his horse, as if in league with the disaffected, ran full tilt towards the solemn equipage of the duke, which the projecting lance threatened to perforate from window to window, at the risk of transfixing as many in its passage as the celebrated thrust of Orlando, which, according to the Italian epic poet, broached as many Moors as a Frenchman spits frogs.

On beholding the bent of this misdirected career, a panic shout of mingled terror and wrath was set up by the whole equipage, insides and outsides at once, which had the blessed effect of averting the threatened misfortune. The capricious horse of Goose Gibbie was terrified by the noise, and, stumbling as he turned short round,

kicked and plunged violently so soon as he recovered. The jack boots, the original cause of the disaster, maintaining the reputation they had acquired when worn by better cavaliers, answered every plunge by a fresh prick of the spurs, and, by their ponderous weight, kept their place in the stirrups. Not so Goose Gibbie, who was fairly spurned out of those wide and ponderous greaves, and precipitated over the horse's head, to the infinite amusement of all the spectators. His lance and helmet had forsaken him in his fall, and, for the completion of his disgrace, Lady Margaret Bellenden, not perfectly aware that it was one of her warriors who was furnishing so much entertainment, came up in time to see her diminutive man-at-arms stripped of his lion's hide, of the buff coat, that is, in which he was muffled.

SIR W. SCOTT.

THE YOUNG AUTHOR.

THE young gentleman to whose performances this paper will be devoted, had the misfortune, in very early life, to discover that he was a genius (a piece of knowledge which most of us acquire before, and lose after, we arrive at years of discretion); and, in consequence of this discovery, he very soon began to train as a literary character. "Link by link the mail is made," appears to have been his governing motto; for he wisely determined to be great amongst little things and little people, before he made his début among great ones. He accordingly commenced