Mr. Pleydell was a lively, sharp-looking gentleman, with a professional shrewdness in his eye, and, generally speaking, a professional formality in his manners. But this, like his three-tailed wig and black coat, he could slip off on a Saturday evening, when surrounded by a party of jolly companions, and disposed for what he called his altitudes. On the present occasion, the revel had lasted since four o'clock, and, at length, under the direction of a venerable compotater, who had shared the sports and festivity of three generations, the frolicsome company had begun to practise the ancient and now forgotten pastime of High-jinks. This game was played in several different ways. Most frequently the dice were thrown by the company, and those upon whom the lot fell were obliged to assume and maintain, for a time, a certain fictitious character, or to repeat a certain number of fescennine verses in a particular order. If they departed from the characters assigned, or if their memory proved treacherous in the repetition, they incurred forfeits, which were either compounded for by swallowing an additional bumper, or by paying a small sum towards the reckoning. At this sport the jovial company were closely engaged, when Mannering entered the room. Mr. Counsellor Pleydell, such as we have described him, was enthroned as a monarch, in an elbow-chair, placed, on the dining-table, his scratch wig on one side, his head crowned with a bottle-slider, his eye leering with an expression betwixt fun and the effects of wine, while his court around him resounded with such crambo scraps of verse as these . Where is Gerunto now? and what's become of him? Gerunto's drowned because he could not swim, etc. etc. Such, O Themis, were anciently the sports of thy Scottish children! Dinmont was first in the room. He stood aghast a moment,--and then exclaimed, "It's him, sure enough-Deil o' the like o' that ever saw!" At the sound of "Mr. Dinmont and Colonel Mannering wanted to speak to you, sir," Pleydell turned his head, and blushed a little when he saw the very genteel figure of the English stranger. He was, however, of the opinion of Falstaff, "Out, ye villains, play out the play!" wisely judging it the better way to appear totally unconcerned. "Where be our guards?" exclaimed this second Justinian; "see ye not a stranger knight from foreign parts arrived at this our court of Holyrood--with our bold yeoman Andrew Dinmont, who has succeeded to the keeping of our royal flocks within the forest of Jedwood, where, thanks to our royal care in the administration of justice, they feed as safe as if they were within the bounds of Fife? Where be our heralds, our pursuivants, our Lyon, our Marchmount, our Carrick, and our Snowdown? Let the strangers be placed at our board, and regaled as beseemeth their quality, and this our high holiday--to-morrow we will hear their tidings." "So please you, my liege, to-morrow's Sunday," said one of the company.