He continued thus muttering to himself for some time longer; but what has been already detailed will be sufficient to show that Ramsay entertained that sweet and gentlemanlike passion of revenge, which was at the time exceedingly dear and pleasant to most of his countrymen. It is so, indeed, with all nations in a semi-barbarous state, and in such a state was Scotland undoubtedly at that time. Torn by factions, frequently a prey to civil strife, when not actually a prey to anarchy, ruled by the strongest and the readiest hand which could clutch and hold the reins of government, she had long seen her children rising to power and wealth on each other's heads, and the pathway to honours marked out by a stream of blood. Ambition went hand in hand with revenge; and the terrible rule seemed fully established in the land, "to forget a benefit as soon as possible, but never to forgive an injury." CHAPTER XIX. I must pass over, with a very brief and general statement, the events which occurred to the personages connected with this tale during several months. There is always in tale-telling, unless the action be compressed within a very short space, a period during which the interest would flag, if the regular passing of each day was noticed, and the small particulars detailed. Were life filled with those striking events which move and interest the reader, with those passions to which the sympathetic heart thrills, with those grand scenes of action which excite the imagination, or with those lesser incidents which amuse and entertain, the human frame, like an over-sharpened knife, would be ground down upon the whetstone of the world, and existence be curtailed of half its date. It is my belief, that patriarchal age was secured to the earlier inhabitants of earth as much by the long intervals existing between the periods of intense excitement, to which they were sometimes subjected, and by the calm and careless ease of the intervening periods, as by any of the many other causes which combined to extend the space between birth and death to well nigh a thousand years. True, they were not close pent up in cities--true, they were continually changing air and scene--true, that excess in anything was little known--true, that they were nearer to the great architype, fresh from the hands of his God, and framed for the immortality of which sin deprived him--true, that long centuries of vice, folly, contention, and misfortune had not then brought forth the multitudinous host of diseases continually warring against the mortal body, diminishing its powers of resistance from generation to generation; but still I believe that the want of excitement, which can only be known where men are spread wide and far apart over the face of the earth, was absolutely necessary to that vast prolongation of life. The mind and body did not mutually grind down each other. Still, the more peaceful periods in any man's history