The Lord Hume of the latter period of the seventeenth century, had a natural son, Patrick, an arch rogue, inheriting the fire of the blood of the Humes, along with that which burnt in the black eyes of the gipsies of Yetholm. He was brought up by his father; and, true to the principles of his education, would acknowledge no patrons of the heart, save the three ruling powers of love, laughter, and war--Cupid, Momus, and Mars--a trio chosen from all the gods, (the remainder being sent to Hades,) as being alone worthy of the worship of a gentleman. How Patrick got acquainted, and, far less, how he got in love with the Mayor of Berwick's daughter, Isabella, we cannot say, nor need antiquarians try to discover; for where there was a Southron to be slain or a lady to be won, Patrick Hume cared no more for bar, buttress, battlement, fire, or water, than did Jove for his own thunder-cloud, under the shade of which he courted the daughter of Inachus. Letting alone the recondite subject of "love's beginning," we shall tread safer ground in stating, that the affection had been very materially increased on both sides by the walls of Berwick; for, although Patrick was a great despiser of fortifications, he had felt, in the affair of his love for Isabella, the fair daughter of the Mayor of Berwick, that there is no getting a damsel through a _loop-hole_, though there might be poured as much sentimental and pathetic speech and sigh-breath through the invidious opening, as ever passed through the free air that fills the breeze under the trysting thorn.