which had lately been arranged with some care, completed the picture. His age could not exceed eight-andtwenty.

The family appeared all well pleased with the unexpected appearance of an old friend. Simon Glover shook his hand again and again, Dorothy made her compliments, and Catharine herself offered freely her hand, which Henry held in his massive grasp, as if he designed to carry it to his lips, but, after a moment's hesitation, desisted, from fear lest the freedom might be ill taken. Not that there was any resistance on the part of the little hand which lay passive in his grasp; but there was a smile mingled with the blush on her cheek, which seemed to increase the confusion of the gallant. Her father, on his part, called out frankly, as he saw his friend's hesitation

'Her lips, man - her lips! and that's a proffer I would not make to every one who crosses my threshold. But, by good St. Valentine, whose holyday will dawn tomorrow, I am so glad to see thee in the bonny city of Perth again, that it would be hard to tell the thing I could refuse thee.'

The smith, for, as has been said, such was the craft of this sturdy artisan, was encouraged modestly to salute the Fair Maid, who yielded the courtesy with a smile of affection that might have become a sister, saying, at the same time, 'Let me hope that I welcome back to Perth a repentant and amended man.'

He held her hand as if about to answer, then suddenly, as one who lost courage at the moment, relinquished his grasp; and drawing back as if afraid of what he had done, his dark countenance glowing with bashfulness, mixed

with delight, he sat down by the fire on the opposite side from that which Catharine occupied.

'Come, Dorothy, speed thee with the food, old woman; and Conachar — where is Conachar?'

'He is gone to bed, sir, with a headache,' said Catharine, in a hesitating voice.

'Go, call him, Dorothy,' said the old glover; 'I will not be used thus by him: his Highland blood, forsooth, is too gentle to lay a trencher or spread a napkin, and he expects to enter our ancient and honourable craft without duly waiting and tending upon his master and teacher in all matters of lawful obedience. Go, call him, I say; I will not be thus neglected.'

Dorothy was presently heard screaming upstairs, or more probably up a ladder, to the cock-loft, to which the recusant apprentice had made an untimely retreat; a muttered answer was returned, and soon after Conachar appeared in the eating-apartment. There was a gloom of deep sullenness on his haughty, though handsome, features, and as he proceeded to spread the board, and arrange the trenchers, with salt, spices, and other condiments to discharge, in short, the duties of a modern domestic, which the custom of the time imposed upon all apprentices - he was obviously disgusted and indignant with the mean office imposed upon him. The Fair Maid of Perth looked with some anxiety at him, as if apprehensive that his evident sullenness might increase her father's displeasure; but it was not till her eyes had sought out his for a second time, that Conachar condescended to veil his dissatisfaction, and throw a greater appearance of willingness and submission into the services which he was performing.

And here we must acquaint our reader that, though the private interchange of looks betwixt Catharine Glover and the young mountaineer indicated some interest on the part of the former in the conduct of the latter, it would have puzzled the strictest observer to discover whether that feeling exceeded in degree what might have been felt by a young person towards a friend and inmate of the same age, with whom she had lived on habits of intimacy.

"Thou hast had a long journey, son Henry,' said Glover, who had always used that affectionate style of speech, though noways akin to the young artisan; 'ay, and hast seen many a river besides Tay, and many a fair bigging besides St. Johnston.'

'But none that I like half so well, and none that are half so much worth my liking,' answered the smith. 'I promise you, father, that, when I crossed the Wicks of Baiglie, and saw the bonny city lie stretched fairly before me like a fairy queen in romance, whom the knight finds asleep among a wilderness of flowers, I felt even as a bird, when it folds its wearied wings to stoop down on its own nest.'

'Aha! so thou canst play the maker1 yet?' said the glover. 'What, shall we have our ballets and our roundels again? our lusty carols for Christmas, and our mirthful springs to trip it round the maypole?'

'Such toys there may be forthcoming, father,' said Henry Smith, though the blast of the bellows and the clatter of the anvil make but coarse company to lays of minstrelsy; but I can afford them no better,

1 Old Scottish for 'poet,' and indeed the literal translation of the original Greek ποιητής.

since I must mend my fortune, though I mar my verses.'

'Right again my own son just,' answered the glover; ‘and I trust thou hast made a saving voyage of it?'

'Nay, I made a thriving one, father: I sold the steel habergeon that you wot of for four hundred marks to the English Warden of the East Marches, Sir Magnus Redman.1 He scarce scrupled a penny after I gave him leave to try a sword-dint upon it. The beggarly Highland thief who bespoke it boggled at half the sum, though it had cost me a year's labour.'.

'What dost thou start at, Conachar?' said Simon, addressing himself, by way of parenthesis, to the mountain disciple; 'wilt thou never learn to mind thy own business, without listening to what is passing round thee? What is it to thee that an Englishman thinks that cheap which a Scottishman may hold dear?'

Conachar turned round to speak, but, after a moment's consideration, looked down, and endeavoured to recover his composure, which had been deranged by the contemptuous manner in which the smith had spoken of his Highland customer.

Henry went on without paying any attention to him. 'I sold at high prices some swords and whingers when I was at Edinburgh. They expect war there; and if it please God to send it, my merchandise will be worth its price. St. Dunstan make us thankful, for he was of our craft. In short, this fellow (laying his hand on his purse),

1 Sir Magnus Redman, sometime Governor of Berwick, fell in one of the battles on the Border which followed on the treason of the Earl of March, alluded to hereafter.

who, thou knowest, father, was somewhat lank and low in condition when I set out four months since, is now as round and full as a six-weeks' porker.'

'And that other leathern-sheathed, iron-hilted fellow who hangs beside him,' said the glover, 'has he been idle all this while? Come, jolly smith, confess the truth how many brawls hast thou had since crossing the Tay?'

--

'Nay, now you do me wrong, father, to ask me such a question (glancing a look at Catharine) in such a presence,' answered the armourer: 'I make swords, indeed, but I leave it to other people to use them. No — no, seldom have I a naked sword in my fist, save when I am turning them on the anvil or grindstone; and they slandered me to your daughter Catharine, that led her to suspect the quietest burgess in Perth of being a brawler. I wish the best of them would dare say such a word at the Hill of Kinnoul, and never a man on the green but he and I.'

'Ayay,' said the glover, laughing, 'we should then have a fine sample of your patient sufferance. Out upon you, Henry, that you will speak so like a knave to one who knows thee so well! You look at Kate, too, as if she did not know that a man in this country must make his hand keep his head, unless he will sleep in slender security. Come come; beshrew me if thou hast not spoiled

as many suits of armour as thou hast made.'

'Why, he would be a bad armourer, father Simon, that could not with his own blow make proof of his own workmanship. If I did not sometimes cleave a helmet, or strike a sword's point through a harness, I should not know what strength of fabric to give them; and might jingle together such pasteboard work as yonder