The next morning, when breakfast was concluded, the duke said in a lively way:--"Come, come, Sir David, you have not travelled here for nothing, we must e'en show you the curiosities of the country. There lives, or rather vegetates, not far hence, a wight, the most eccentric being perhaps that ever existed--I pray you go see him. This personage is Squire Cornelius Kiltipper, of Crownagalera Castle, once the mighty Nimrod of these parts. You must, moreover, know, that from Squire Kiltipper's determined addiction to strong liquors, and likewise from the fatal consequence of a far-bruited boozing bout, in which he actually out-drank and out-lived his opponent in a long continued contest; (the defunct had been a gauger who thus succumbed in death, even at the base of the Squire's dinner-table;) in consequence of which Kiltipper was ever afterwards called, in popular parlance, _Squire Kil-Toper_! For, Sir David, you must know that the lower class of my countrymen are feelingly sensible of the ridiculous, and extremely fond of _soubriquets_, or nick-names.--Indeed they are curious bodies! So I pray you proceed to see this curiosity, and my kind Sir Patricius Placebo shall, upon this occasion, be your _conduttóre_." Acceding to this recommendation of the duke, Sir David Bruce, accompanied by Sir Patricius Placebo, proceeded onward in their walk; and, as a _prétexte par hazard_, they carried with them their fowling-pieces, and were accompanied with a couple of pointers, and an attendant terrier. They set out, and walked across the field-paths, in due direction for the castle of Crownagela, which was distant about two miles. Upon their arrival they stoutly knocked at the hall-door, but the servant refused admittance. However, after some parlance, and the rank of the visitors having been announced, they were admitted. Here a loud and general exclamation vociferated from the parlour, struck the ears of the visitors--"A song, a song!" The servant upon this observed, "Gentlemen, yees must have the goodness to wait just a bit till this same song is over, and then I will show yees to my master. If I dare go in now, to transdispose their musicals, the penalty would be, that I should be flung flat out of the window, and that, I am sartin, would not quite plaze yees." While the visitors waited with what patience they might, before they were admitted to an audience with the original whom they had come to visit, the following bacchanalian song was conjointly sung; and which rumour likewise reported to have been composed by the vocal triumvirate, namely, Mr. Barrabbas Tithestang, the proctor, Mr. Simon Swigg, the gauger, and Mr. Stephen Stavespoil, the parish clerk and sexton: but the latter personage was strongly suspected to have had the principal hand, or pen, in the precious composition. SONG. I.