It was one of those leaky, bleak November days, when the weather, out of temper with itself, is continually making wry faces at the rain and the forest and the cattle, that a gentleman lately arrived from the auld town of Edinboro, shook the glistening rain-drops from his shaggy talma in the great hall of Ingleside, as he observed to the host with a smile, "Thot it was a wee bit scrowie, but the weether wad be fayre in its ain gude time." It was indeed one of those leaden days that occasionally comes in the Southland with the November chills, pinching the herds that are out upon the glades and meadows, when the winds sang in the tree boughs with a strange and melancholy rhythm. A sailor passing up the forward ladder from the forecastle to observe the weather would say, with a shudder, that it was a "greasy day," and that the sky and shrouds and storm-sails were leaky. Col. Seymour, upon ordinary occasions, was a gentleman of discrimination, and his judgment of character was fairly correct. Like the true Scotch Southron, as he was, he had his own ideals, his own loves and his own idiosyncrasies. He loved Scotland and her people, her memories, her history, her renown, her trossachs, her lakes, her mountains; they were his people, and Scotland was the "ain love of his fayther and mither." He had not forgotten the language of her beautiful hills and vales, though he was a boy when, with his parents, he bade adieu to his bonny country to find a home across the water in the Old North State, so prodigal and impartial in the distribution of honors and riches to all who came with clean hands and stout hearts. So when the neat and genteel Scotchman gave his name as Hugh McAden, the old man's heart impulsively warmed towards his guest, for he knew of a verity that a McAden everywhere was a man of honor--the name, an open sesame to the hearts and homes of Scotch Americans. "I will make you very comfortable to-day, sir," he observed, as he escorted Mr. McAden to his library. There were great hickory logs, half consumed, resting upon the antiquated brass andirons in the fire-place, giving warmth and cheer to the whole room. The stranger, rubbing his hands vigorously, for they were very cold and stiff, observed interrogatively, "You do not let the chill ond weet coom into the hoose?" "No indeed," replied the Colonel with a broad smile, "these inflictions are for other folks, whose liberty is upon the highways and in the forests in such weather." "Ah, for ither fauk; maybe the naygurs," laughingly suggested the Scotchman. "Yes, you can hear the guns in the woods, where they are hunting cattle not their own. You can see drunken squads marching upon the roads upon such a day." "Ah!" he exclaimed, "ond do ye call this free America? May-be ye hae no goovernment as ye haed lang syne, ond no law ither."