introduce myself? Here lay the difficulty, and beyond this I could fix on nothing; so with a heavy heart I climbed the hill before my kinsman's house, and presented myself at the wide door of the kitchen, just as the twilight was darkening down into night. I found my host sitting as was his wont--his nightcap on his head, his long staff in his hand, and two greyhounds at his feet--behind the fire upon his oaken settle. "I'm thinkin', Willie," he began as he saw me enter--"I'm thinkin' ye hae catched a wet sark. Janet, lass, fetch your cusin a dram. Nane o' your piperly smellin' bottles," cried he, as she produced some cordials in an ancient liquor-stand--"Nane o' your auld wife's jaups for ane o' my name--fetch something purpose-like; for when my nevoy has changed himsell, we'll hae a stoup o' whisky, and a crack thegither." In a few minutes I was seated in dry clothes, before a bowl of punch and a blazing fire, beside the old gentleman on his oaken sofa. At any other time I would have enjoyed the scene with infinite satisfaction; for the national tipple, in my mind, drinks nowhere so pleasantly as on a bench behind the broad hearthstone of such a kitchen-hall as my friend's. Our smaller gentry had, it is true, long since betaken themselves to their parlours and their drawing-rooms; and the steams of whisky-punch had already risen with the odours of bohea, and the smoke of sea-borne coals, to the damask hangings and alabaster cornices of many high-ceiled and stately apartments. Yet there were still some of the old school, who, like my good friend, continued to make their headquarters, after the ancient fashion, among their own domestics, and behind their own hearthstone; for in all old houses the fire is six feet at least from the gable, and the space between is set apart for the homely owner.