"The same, my dear fellow. It is ten long years since we met, and time has left his marks upon us both; no wonder we did not recognise each other at first; particularly as it was in such a very different scene we last met, or rather parted." We spent the evening together, as two long-separated friends should do, in talking over the events of our early years, and relating our mutual adventures since we parted. As I did not know Sandford myself at first, it is hardly to be expected that the reader can know either of us without a formal introduction; which is the more necessary, as we are both to figure in the tale I am about to relate. Those of my readers who have passed through Longtown in Cumberland may have remarked, on the left-hand side of the main street, as they entered the town from the bridge, a neat red-brick house, with an iron-railed enclosure in front, and a large gateway to the right, leading into the courtyard. In that house Sandford Grant and I first became acquainted with each other; it was then an academy. The house still remains, but master and pupils are "scattered to the four winds of heaven." For three years we were class-fellows and friends; for we were just of the same age, and a Scottish feeling of clannish regard made us cling to each other more perhaps than we otherwise would have done. He was a handsome, spirited boy, or rather child, and was always ready, at a word, to fight my battles as well as his own. He was a great favourite on account of his frank, liberal disposition; but the most unlucky little dog that ever lived. If ever there was any mischief going on, he was sure to be concerned in it, and as sure of being discovered and punished; if there was only one puddle in the road on a Sunday, he, somehow or other, contrived to go out of his way to tumble into it, dirty his white stockings, and be recommended by the mistress to her husband's tender mercies. In fact, he was constantly getting into scrapes; so much so that "Sandford's luck" became quite a proverb among us.