It was strange then, that I, who hitherto had so intensely relished such a scene, should be so absent now that it was spread round me in its perfection. The peat and bog-fir fire before me, and the merry faces glistening through the white smoke beyond; the chimney overhead, like some great minster bell (the huge hanging pot for the clapper); the antlers, broadsword, and sporting tackle on the wall behind; the goodly show of fat flitches and briskets around me and above, and that merry and wise old fellow, glass in hand, with endless store of good stories, pithy sayings, and choice points of humour, by my side; yet with all I sat melancholy and ill at ease. In vain did the rare old man tell me his best marvels; how he once fought with Tom Hughes, a wild Welshman, whom he met in a perilous journey through the forests of Cheshire; how Tom would not let go his grip when he had him down ("whilk was a foul villany"); and how he had to roll into a running water before he could get loose ("whilk showed the savage natur of thae menseless barbarians"). In vain he told me that pleasant jest, how my grandfather "ance wiled the six excisemen into a lone house, and then gaed in himsell and pyed them through the windows, whilk cleared the country-side o' that vermin as lang as auld Redrigs was to the fore." In vain he told me how his old dog Stretcher hunted the black hare from Dunmoss to Skyboe. I left him in the subtlest of the doubles, and in another minute was in the penthouse of clay, the river boiling at my feet, and the rain rushing round my head; but before me were the rich delighted eyes and quickening features of my unknown beauty. Again I bore her through the flood; again I bent over her, and pressed her to my breast, and once more in fancy I had felt the thrill of her returned embrace; once more I had kissed her lips, and once more we had vowed to live or die together, when I was startled from my reverie by a question which the unsuspecting old man was now repeating for the third time. I stammered an excuse, and roused myself to the hearing of another excellent jest; but what it might have been I know not, for the entrance of a young labourer, an old acquaintance of my own, with whom he had business, cut it short. "Aleck," he said, "get ready to set out for the fair upon the morn's e'en; and, Aleck, my man, keep yoursell out o' drink and fechtin'--and, my bonny man, I'm saying, the neist time ye gang a-courtin' to the Grange (I pricked up my ears all at once), see that ye're no ta'en for ane o' thae rebel chiels, wha, they say, are burrowin' e'en noo about the auld wa's as thick as mice in a meal-ark."--"But Aleck," crooned old Mause from the corner, "whilk ane o' the lasses are you for?" This was enough. I watched my opportunity, slipped out to the stable, found Aleck, who had retreated thither in his confusion, and point-blank proposed that he should take me with him that very night, and introduce me to one of