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their path, and reveals in the hush some ineffable eemage o' what was lovely and beloved o' yore, when they were, as they thocht, perfectly happy, although the heart kens weel that 'tis but an eemage, and nae mair-yet still it maun be blest, and let the tears drap as they will on the faded cheek, I should say the puir desolate cretur did in that strange fit o' passion suffer the joy o' grief.

North. You will forgive me, James, when I confess, that though I enjoyed just now the sound of your voice, which seemed to me more than usually pleasant, with a trembling tone of the pathetic, I did not catch the sense of your speech.

Shepherd. I wasna makin a speech, sir-only utterin a sort o' sentiment that has already evaporated clean out o' mind, or passed awa like an uncertain shadow.

North. Misery is selfish, James-and I have lost almost all sympathy with my fellow-creatures, alike in their joys and their sorrows.

Shepherd. Come, come, sir-cheer up, cheer up. It's naething but the blue devils.

North. All dead-one after another-the friends in whom lay the light and might of my life-and memory's self is faithless now to the "old familiar faces." Eyes-brows-lips -smiles-voices-all-all forgotten! Pitiable, indeed, is old age, when love itself grows feeble in the heart, and yet the dotard is still conscious that he is day by day letting some sacred remembrance slip for ever from him that he once cherished devoutly in his heart's core, and feels that mental decay alone is fast delivering them all up to oblivion !

Shepherd. Sittin wi' rheumy een, mumblin wi' his mouth on his breist, and no kennin frae ither weans his grandchildren wha have come to visit him wi' their mother, his ain bricht and beautifu' dauchter, wha seems to him a stranger passing alang the street.

North. What said you, James?

Shepherd. Naething, sir, naething. I wasna speakin o' you -but o' anither man.

North. They who knew me and loved me--and honoured me-and admired me-for why fear to use that word, now to me charmless?-all dust! What are a thousand kind acquaintances, James, to him who has buried all the few friends of

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his soul-all the few-one-two-three-but powerful as a whole army to guard the holiest recesses of life!

Shepherd. An' am I accounted but a kind acquaintance and nae mair! I wha

North. What have I said to hurt you, my dear James? Shepherd. Never mind, sir-never mind. I'll try to forget it-but

North. Stir the fire, James-and give a slight touch to that lamp.

Shepherd. There's a bleeze, sir, at ae blast. An' there's the Orrery, bricht as the nicht in Homer's Iliad, about which you wrote sic eloquent havers. And there's your bumperglass. Noo, sir, be candid and tell me, gif you dinna think that you've been a verra great fule?

North. I believe I have, my dear James. But, by all that is ludicrous here below, look at Tickler!

Shepherd. O for Cruckshank! You see what he's dreaming about in his sleep, sir, lyin on the ae side, wi' that big black sofa-pillow in his arms! He is evidently on his marriage jaunt to the Lakes, and passing the hinnymoon amang the mountains. She's indeed a fearsome dear, the bride. She has gotten nae feturs- and as for feegur, she's the same thickness a' the way doun, as if she was stuffed. But there's nae accountin for taste; and mony a queer cretur gets a husband. Sleep on-sleep on-ye bony pair! for noo you're leadin your lives in Elysium.

North. I hope, James, that neither you nor I have such open countenances in our sleep, as our friend before us.

Shepherd. I canna charge ma memory wi' sic a mouth. What's the maitter? What's the maitter? Lo! Mrs Tickler has either fa'en or loupen out o' the bed, an's tumblin alang the floor! What'n an exposé! In decency, sir, really we twa should retire.

North. The blushing bride has absolutely hidden herself under the table.

Shepherd. Oh! but this is gran' sport. Let's blacken his ee-brees, and gie him mistashes.

[The SHEPHERD, with burnt cork, dexterously makes TICKLER

a Hussar.

There you're noo ane o' the Third, at Jock's Lodge. Gie

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A SALMON HOOKED.

Mrs Tickler, sir, a touch wi' the crutch, under the table, and send her ower this way, that I may restore her to the bridegroom's longing arms. It's a shame to see her sleepin at the stock-the wife should aye lie neist the wa'. Sae I'll tak the liberty to place her atween her husband's back and that o' the settee. When he waukens he'll hae mony apologies to mak for his bad mainners. But the twa 'ill sune mak it up, and naething in this life's half so sweet as the reconciliation o' lovers' quarrels.

North. By the by, James, who won the salmon medal this season on the Tweed?

Shepherd. Wha, think ye, could it be, ye coof, but mysel? I beat them a' by twa stane wecht. Oh, Mr North, but it wad hae done your heart gude to hae daunered alang the banks wi' me on the 25th, and seen the slauchter. At the third thraw the snout o' a famous fish sookit in ma flee-and for some seconds keepit steadfast in a sort o' eddy that gaed sullenly swirlin at the tail o' yon pool-I needna name't-for the river had risen just to the proper pint, and was black as ink, except when noo and then the sun struggled out frae atween the clud-chinks, and then the water was purple as heather-moss in the season of blaeberries. But that verra instant the flee began to bite him on the tongue, for by a jerk o' the wrist I had slichtly gien him the butt—and sunbeam never swifter shot frae Heaven, than shot that saumon-beam doun intil and out o' the pool below, and alang the saughshallows or you come to Juniper Bank. Clap-clap-clap― at the same instant played a couple o' cushats frae an aik aboon my head, at the purr o' the pirn, that let out, in a twinkling, a hunner yards o' Mr Phin's best, strang aneuch to haud a bill or a rhinoceros.

North. Incomparable tackle!

Shepherd. For, far awa doun the flood, see till him, sir— see till him,-loup-loup-loupin intil the air, describin in the spray the rinnin rainbows! Scarcely could I believe, at sic a distance, that he was the same fish. He seemed a saumon divertin himsel, without ony connection in this warld wi' the Shepherd. But we were linked thegither, sir, by the inveesible gut o' destiny—and I chasteesed him in his pastime wi' the rod o' affliction. Windin up-windin up, faster than ever ye grunded coffee-I keepit closin in upon him, till the whale

1 Stock-forepart of a bed.

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bone was amaist perpendicular outower him, as he stoppit to tak breath in a deep plum. You see the savage had gotten sulky, and you micht as weel hae rugged at a rock. Hoo I leuch! Easin the line ever so little, till it just moved slichtly like gossamer in a breath o' wund-I half persuaded him that he had gotten aff; but na, na, ma man, ye ken little about the Kirby-bends, gin ye think the peacock's harl and the tinsy hae slipped frae your jaws! Snoovin up the stream he goes, hither and thither, but still keepin weel in the middle-and noo strecht and steddy as a bridegroom ridin to the kirk. North. An original image.

Shepherd. Say rather application! Maist majestic, sir, you'll alloo, is that flicht o' a fish when the line cuts the surface without commotion, and you micht imagine that he was sailin unseen below in the style o' an eagle about to fauld his wings on the cliff.

North. Tak tent, James. Be wary, or he will escape. Shepherd. Never fear, sir. He'll no pit me aff my guard by keepin the croon o' the causey in that gate. I ken what he's ettlin at-and it's naething mair nor less nor yon island. Thinks he to himsel, wi' his tail, "gin I get abreist o' the broom, I'll roun' the rocks, doun the rapids, and break the Shepherd." And nae sooner thocht than done but bauld in my cork-jacket

North. That's a new appurtenance to your person, James; I thought you had always angled in bladders.

Shepherd. Sae Iused-but last season they fell doun to my heels, and had nearly drooned me-sae I trust noo to my bodyguard. North. I prefer the air life-preserver.

Shepherd. If it bursts you're gone. Bauld in my cork-jacket I took till the soomin, haudin the rod aboon my headNorth. Like Cæsar his Commentaries.

Shepherd. And gettin fittin on the bit island-there's no a shrub on't, you ken, aboon the waistband o' my breeks-I was just in time to let him easy ower the Fa', and Heaven safe us! he turned up, as he played wallop, a side like a house! He fand noo that he was in the hauns o' his maister, and began to loss heart; for naethin cows the better pairt o' man, brute, fool, or fish, like a sense o' inferiority. Sometimes in a large pairty it suddenly strikes me dumb

North. But never in the Snuggery, James-never in the Sanctum

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A SALMON KILLED.

Shepherd. Na, na, na-never i' the Snuggery, never i' the Sanctum, my dear auld man! For there we're a' brithers, and keep bletherin withouten ony sense o' propriety—I ax pardon-o' inferiority-bein' a' on a level, and that lichtsome, like the parallel roads in Glenroy, when the sunshine pours upon them frae the tap o' Ben Nevis.

North. But we forget the fish.

Shepherd. No me. I'll remember him on my deathbed. In body the same, he was entirely anither fish in sowl. He had set his life on the hazard o' a die, and it had turned up blanks. I began first to pity, and then to despise him-for frae a fish o' his appearance I expeckit that nae ack o' his life wad hae sae graced him as the closin ane-and I was pairtly wae and pairtly wrathfu' to see him dee saft! Yet, to do him justice, it's no impossible but that he may hae druv his snout again' a stane, and got dazed—and we a' ken by experience that there's naething mair likely to calm courage than a brainin knock on the head. His organ o' locality had gotten a clour, for he lost a' judgment atween wat and dry, and came floatin, belly upmost, in amang the bit snail-buckyshells on the sand around my feet, and lay there as still as if he had been gutted on the kitchen-dresser an enormous fish. North. A sumph.

Shepherd. No sic a sumph as he looked like and that you'll think when you hear tell o' the lave o' the adventure. Bein' rather out o' wund, I sits doun on a stane, and was wipin ma broos, wi' ma een fixed upon the prey, when a' on a sudden, as if he had been galvaneesed, he stotted up intil the lift, and wi' ae squash played plunge into the pool, and awa doun the eddies like a porpus. I thocht I should hae gane mad, Heaven forgie me and I fear I swore like a trooper. Loupin wi' a spang frae the stane, I missed ma feet, and gaed headower-heels intil the water-while amang the rushin o' the element I heard roars o' lauchter as if frae the kelpie himsel, but what afterwards turned out to be guffaws frae your friens Boyd and Juniper Bank,' wha had been wutnessin the drama frae commencement to catastrophe.

North. Ha! ha ha! James! it must have been excessively droll.

1 Messrs Boyd of Innerleithen, and Thorburn of Juniper Bank, a farm on Tweedside.