A steep bulwark in front, against which the tide lashes twice every twenty-four hours,--an abrupt hill behind,--a few rows of squalid cottages built of red sandstone, much wasted by the keen sea-winds,--a wilderness of dunghills and ruinous pig-styes,--women seated at the doors, employed in baiting lines or mending nets,--groups of men lounging lazily at some gable-end fronting the sea,--herds of ragged children playing in the lanes,--such are the components of the fishing village of Gardenstone. From the identity of name, I had associated the place with that Lord Gardenstone of the Court of Sessions who published, late in the last century, a volume of "Miscellanies in Prose and Verse," containing, among other clever things, a series of tart criticisms on English plays, transcribed, it was stated in the preface, from the margins and fly-leaves of the books of a "small library kept open by his Lordship" for the amusement of travellers at the inn of some village in his immediate neighborhood; and taking it for granted, somehow, that Gardenstone was the village, I was looking around me for the inn, in the hope that where his Lordship had opened a library I might find a dinner. But failing to discern it, I addressed myself on the subject to an elderly man in a pack-sheet apron, who stood all alone, looking out upon the sea, like Napoleon, in the print, from a projection of the bulwark. He turned round, and showed, by an unmistakable expression of eye and feature, that he was what the servant girl in "Guy Mannering" characterizes as "very particularly drunk,"--not stupidly, but happily, funnily, conceitedly drunk, and full of all manner of high thoughts of himself. "It'll be an awfu' coorse nicht," he said, "fra the sea." "Very likely," I replied, reiterating my query in a form that indicated some little confidence of receiving the needed information; "I daresay you could point me out the public-house here?" "Aweel, I wat, that I can; but what's that?" pointing to the straps of my knapsack;--"are ye a sodger on the Queen's account, or ye'r ain?" "On my own, to be sure; but have ye a public-house here?" "Ay, twa; ye'll be a traveller?" "O yes, great traveller, and very hungry: have I passed the best public-house?" "Ay; and ye'll hae come a gude stap the day?" A woman came up, with spectacles on nose, and a piece of white seam-work in her hand; and, cutting short the dialogue by addressing myself to her, she at once directed me to the public-house. "Hoot, gude-wife," I heard the man say, as I turned down the street, "we suld ha'e gotten mair oot o' him. He's a great traveller yon, an' has a gude Scots tongue in his head."