lords threaten, from their places in parliament, to violate the laws in the event of their particular crotchets sustaining a defeat, what can we look for among the common herd except a ready adaptation of the principle to their own cases? You may thank the authors of the Reform-bill for all this mischief; and though no prophet, I venture to add that you will have yet a great deal more of the same sort for which to be grateful."

Mr. Blackston never entered into an argument with his noble friend on this or on any other subject. He was content to smile internally, while he remembered the violence with which, not quite two years previously, the same noble personage had clamoured for reform. Yet where persons hold opinions so widely at variance as those of Lord Boroughdale on the one hand, and of the member for Coketown on the other, a lengthened familiarity, even if it operate only to the mutual interchange of friendly offices, soon becomes a lengthened penance. It was, therefore, with a degree of satisfaction, which he only shared with his guests of a week, that Mr. Blackston beheld them at length pack themselves into a couple of carriages, and take the road for London with the undisguised design of interrupting for a while all intercourse with the county of

The historian has related how, on the 6th of December, 1831, the two houses of parliament met to discuss once again the merits of the Reformbill. The same authority has left it upon record that the bill, after a stout resistance, passed the Commons, and was carried, as it had been carried before, into the House of Lords. But the events of the preceding autumn, together with a rumoured accession to their numbers, had operated a great change in the sentiments of the peers of England. The bill was ordered to be read a second time by a majority of forty-one; and passed as a matter of course into cominittee. Not yet, however, were the leaders of the party convinced that the hour for receding gracefully from the struggle was come. On the first clause, which brought about a debate, the ministers were defeated; and they lost not a moment in tendering their resignation. It was accepted, and an effort made to form a Tory govern

ment; but the Tories could not agree among themselves, and there was confusion every where. Then came the Whigs back to power an hundredfold more consolidated than ever; then withdrew a large body of the peers from all further concern in the business of the House; and then, and not till then, the Reforming prime minister began to ask himself the question, whether he had not gone too far? It was now, however, too late to pause. One resolution after another was proposed and carried; till in due time the constitution, which had been the boast of Englishmen for centuries, and under which England had grown great and powerful, passed away, that it might be succeeded by a device concocted in an hour; and rendered legal, if not permanent, by violence.

Among the Lords who gave up the Reform-bill into the hands of its authors, Lord Boroughdale was not one. He had cheered it on its course when it was first propounded; he was the last of his order to withdraw from opposing it. Night after night he and a handful more went down to speak and to vote against clauses, to defeat which they knew that they were powerless. But Lord Boroughdale was one of those who always act, or imagine that they are acting, upon principle. What was it to him, though the inefficient resistance which he offered enabled the ministers to delude the people by sophistical declarations, or placed them in the light of a body of statesmen who carried their own measure fairly, and by the legitimate means of outvoting-we will not say outreasoning-their rivals? “Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum," was Lord Boroughdale's motto. There may be practical evil in this, but the abstract principle is a just one: so he who had been one of the principal agents in driving out his old leader and bringing in the Whigs, desisted not from making a display of his hostility to the latter, even when the former was content to stand aloof. But Lord Boroughdale's game was losing one, as all the world knows. He saw it to an end; and then, taking with him his wife and daughter, he passed over to the Continent, in order, as he expressed it, that his eyes might not look upon the downfal of his country.

Ar the rise and fall of the leaf, the husbandmen of England turn their children over to the care of the district apothecary, who purges and bleeds them for the good of his shop as well as their constitutions; but in Scotland the same class of men despatch their children to the sea, to bathe in its tide and drink its unsavoury waters-once a-year, at least, in obedience to an ancient receipt for the preservation of health. This takes place during the summer, and before harvest commences; the days are then long, the air hot, and each inland glen and village pours out its people in compliance with use and wont-a Mede and Persian law, which altereth not.

My first acquaintance with the Solway commenced in that way, and happened in my fifteenth year. I was not aware that I was at all ailing; for I ate well, drank well, and slept well; and if a hawk's nest was to be harried on a tottering tower, or an hour's harmless devilry to be done in the land, I was with the foremost. I thought that something more than usual was in the wind when three old sagacious crones, who settled all matters of scandal, or of manners, or of domestic difficulty in the land, came to our gate-end, and had a whole evening's gossip with my mother. I was in a small closet, where I kept some odd volumes of ballads, and overheard the whole palaver.

"I'll tell ye what, gudewife," said the eldest of the three, "the bairn's a delicate bairn; and though he sodded up my lumhead, and maist reekit the soul out of douce Davie Lamont when he came to pray wi' me, and pou'd a' my red-cheeked Leadingtons, and canna haud his hands off our Jock's Jenny whenever the lassie comes his way, he's nevertheless an ailing laddie; and though it may pain a mither's ear to hear it, far gane in a decline!"

"A decline!" exclaimed the second district authority; "deil haet o' a decline's in a' his skin, whilk is as healthy as a new-blawn rose, and

as white as the driven snaw-he taks that after his ain mither—and he's as fou o' mischief as an egg's fou o' meat. Decline! he has owre meikle health o' his ain, and that's just as bad as owre little; and the best thing for that is a gude douk-and better still, a gude drink of the Solway whare it's sautest-and that's beside the rock o' Colvend, called Lot's Wife, -I trow, will take the groskiness out on him, or I watna what will!" and she gave her staff-which had a head of tup's horn, and was shod on the other end with a brass virl-a knock on the floor to give sanction to her opinion.

"I differ frae ye baith," said the third authority, "and I differ in this: I think the bairn's just in the debeatable land, atween life and death; and though I own that the bit starts of harmless mischief whilk he's prone to is an evidence of life and spunk, yet, oh, sirs! a' that ken aught of poor human nature maun own that we will be at the last gasp afore we put the deil out o' our minds, or gie the back o' the hand to daft notions; and if ye will observe the bairn, ye will see that his appetite is not natural; ony little health he has is at mealtime. But I agree wi' ye baith in this really this wee drap bitters is the best I ever tasted since Willie o' Brandy burn grew owre stiff for smuggling but it's a sinful, deluding drink; and warst wi' them that care least about it, I think;-I agree wi' ye in this, as I said, that the Solway water at the full of the moon is worth a' the doctors that ever gat diplomas, as they ca' their permits to poison, kill, and slay; sae awa' to the saut water wi' him; and, oh! let him take care of the wild sea, for mony a mither's ee it has made wet, and mony a fair face it has feasted on!"

"But something mair maun be done, cummers," said the first crone, "than merely sending the bairn to the Solway; we maun lodge him wi' some ane wha fears God and eschews evil; and where will ye find sic a ane on that wild coast? There's the

auld Laird of Merse-head; but he's grown doited, and disnae ken a rosie kimmer of aughteen frae the auld moss-aik with whilk he props a cornrick -sae we mauna think o' him. But, stay, there's him o' the Mersefoot; a douce man was he when he dwalt in the wool-lands, and went regularly to the kirk.”

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Ay, but he gangs to the Session now!" said the second crone. "Have ye no heard that? He has mooled in wi' a quean that gade to keep house to him, and the creepie-chair's the upshot. I could hae tauld what wad happen as sure as I can tell that summer succeeds spring, had I kenned that Nanie Neevan was to hae rule in his household. Oh, sirs! a sair fa' -a sair fa'!"

"A sair fa', indeed!" said the third authority; “and the warst of a' fa's, for either soul or body, so Mersefoot winna do. But we're a' blin', I think; there's Willie Macmeikle o' Airnaumry, a cannie man, wi' siller in his pouch and a score o' kyne on the Merse; he has a chaumer whilk he lets out in the saut-water season; he has a grip like the blacksmith's tangs, and he keeps a scrimpit table: he's just the man for us. I'll tell my cousin Jenny of the Bourtreebuss to make the bargain, for Willie was never wyted for selling his hens on a rainy day."

"Na, na!" said the first crone, "Airnaumry winna do; we mauna have the bairn starved, neither. Shew me ane who scrimps the cog, and I'll shew ane who has a scrimpit soul. Now, if it werena that Sandie Macmillan has but a sma' steading, and is a bitter Jacobite, and suspected of being a Catholic, he's the safest man in a' the land, for fient a woman is permitted to darken his portals. He dwells like a sea-maw, within the very sough, and sound of the sea, in a house biggit by his ain hands; for he's a man, as he says, that's his ain man, and cares nae a salmon-scale for the best of the land; and as the bairn there likes ballads and other sic jingling foolery, I'll warrant he'll ballad him! for he does little else than sit and sing frae morn till e'en, and see that the pot plays brown and the fish is frying right."

"His presence be near us!" said my mother, who till now had not

spoken. "His presence be near us, I say again! Will he no make my bairn a bitter, black Jacobite, like himsel', and bring in the Scarlet Lass of the Seven hills, wi' a' her charms and abominations, and stir up rebellion, and gar the land swim in the blood of saints ?"

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Hout, hout, dame!" exclaimed two out of the three counsellors. "What words are these? There can be nae Jacobites now, mair than there can be bonnet-makers where a' fowk wear hats. The house of the Stuarts is dead and gane; the very last o' them was bribed by the Paip of Rome wi' a cardinal's cap to conclude the race, and gie the warld nae mair fash; and the silly gowk consented, and sae there was an end of the lang and bright line o' Plantagenets, and Bruces, and Stuarts, a' thegither; sae, as I said, a Jacobite's but a memory and a name now, and can do nae mair harm than the stuffed skin of the fox can amang our lady's capons!"

Ou, then we may venture the bairn, ye think, wi' Saunders Macmillan ?" inquired my mother.

"Aweel I wot may ye!" said all the three authorities in a breath; "and send him off at ance; for the air is sweet and balmy, and the sun warm and bright."

On the third day after this consultation I was on my way to the Cliffs of Colvend. As I had never be fore seen the sea, save in a map, nor a ship under sail, save those shaped by a shepherd's knife, and launched on a mill-dam with sails of paper, I was delighted when it opened on my view with all its brigs and brigantines, its sea-mews in full wing, and its pellocks, with their black heads and bright eyes, outrunning the tide. The tide itself was in full flow, and half the population were in the water, fluttering about as ducks when they expect rain. Some were floating about like feathers when the swans are pluming themselves; some sitting half-naked on the sand or on the rocks, looking at the long lines of waves; and all inhaling that wild and not over- savoury air, which rural doctors say is little less beneficial than bathing and drinking.

I inquired for my future host, Willie Macmillan, at a boy, who with a shell at his ear stood listening

it soughs again! Weel it maun be a living thing after a', and that makes it doubly queer. I wish I can take it safely to the hills." And away he ran holding the shell first to one ear and then to the other, nor deigned to answer my question.

I walked a little farther on, where the tide, now beginning to retire, had left its foam and wreck among the scattered line of rocks which hemmed in the waves. There a young woman, with her long masses of hair yet wet from the brine, and with naught save her kirtle and boddice on, stood gazing at one of those rarities of the coast called an animal flower.

"I declare," said she to me, yet half-unconscious that she gave words to her wonder, "that it's mudging yet! It was a bonnie flower no a minute syne, and as I stooped to smell it, it turned into a fish. Keep back, and dinna speak, and it will soon turn into a flower again. Have ye ony sic marvels as that now at the Mermaid-linn or the Kelpieloch ?" and she looked in up my face with a laugh as she spoke.

"Indeed, Katie," said I, "you were the only marvel we had, and now ye have left us I hear."

"Left ye, indeed!" replied Kate; "how could I leave those I was never with? My father lived on ae side of the water, and your mother dwelt on the tither, and ye were like the cat, and durst na wet yere feet for us. Gae wa' wi' ye! But, after a', now is nae this a queer piece of Nature's handy-work? amaist as queer as man himself, for he's the queerest of a'. Na ye needna look at me as if ye wad glower a hole into me. I live but on the tither side o' the Merse there; there's nae water atween us now!" And snatching up some spare raiment as she spoke, she ran off and stayed no further question.

An old woman who lived on the

coast, and was as brown as the sand of the shore, and little less wrinkled, answered my question in her own

way.

"Willie Macmillan!" quoth she. "What ken I about Willie Macmillan? Had ye asked for Charlie's Willie, or Willie o' Forty-five, or Jacobite Willie, there wad hae been mair sense in't, for I'm sure Willie Macmillan has nae heard his ain christened name these fifty long years. But there's the skipper; he can not only tell ye where the auld Jacobite lives, but where ye'll find him at this very moment; for although thae twasome agree in little, and in politics least of a', they are seldom asunder. The heat o' the tane cools the tither, as the daft sang says."

As she said this, she pointed to a little old man who was walking by himself backwards and forwards, with his hands behind his back, on a small platform, half rock and half greensward. His short step-his face shrivelled and puckered into a model for a head of Boreas-and the maritime air of the man, told me at once that he was an old sailor. I went up to him, and soon found that he was a Scot as well as a mariner. I inquired for Willie Macmillan.

"And wha may ye be now that speirs?" was the response. "And wha could tell ye that I kenned aught about Willie Macmillan-if Macmillan be his name, of the which I hae my doubts-ye ken little of Willie if ye look for him here; he seldom mingles with the multitude, but just dauners by himself, whiles by the piper's cove, whiles at the back of Rabin Rigg yonder where ye see the white waves louping, and whiles ye may find him in the lap of Lot's Wife, whilk is no a creature of flesh and blood, but yon muckle white craig washen twice in the fourand-twenty by the saut sea to gaur her look white. Na, na, ye'll no find Willie here; he lives by himsel', he eats by himsel', sleeps by himsel’— I had maist said drinks by himself; but nae Scotchman ever does that, so he whiles takes a chappin wi' mebut he sleeps by himsel', sings by himsel', and were a' the south of Scotland drowned together in the Powfoot, Willie wad be drowned by himsel', or he wadna be Willie Macmillan. Na, but his presence be

Willie Macmillan, shunning the ridges of shells and pebbles which the tide had heaped along the shore, approached where we stood by a circuitous way, which gave me leisure to survey the exterior at least of the remarkable person under whose roof I was to lodge. He could not be less than eighty years of age; some called him older; he had a stately, soldier-like air, and his step was steady, and measured, and slow. Though tall, he was not in the least bent; his eye was a bright and cheerful blue; his cheeks brown and not at all wrinkled; and his forehead high and noble. He wore a sort of grey loose frock like coat, with wooden buttons, made, it was said, by his own knife; the rest of his dress was of the same cut, the same colour, and the like texture. It should be told that the cloth which composed his dress was all his own manufacture; that he took three white fleeces, carded one black fleece through them, turned the wool into thread with his own hand, wove it into cloth in a loom of his own making, shaped it into clothes with his own sheers, and sewed them with his own needle. All this was done from principle, not from parsimony.

Observing as he advanced that I looked on him with wondering eyes"Aye, younker," he said, "did ye never see a man before clad in clothes of his own manufacture and making, wi' shoon on his feet made of leather tanned by a natural process, and no burnt into a cinder by chemical discoveries, and who gets his food frae the sea, his roots and fruits frae the land whereon he dwells, and drinks water frae Saint Allan's spring on the rock at his own house. And isna a' that true, Skipper Kinch

I ventured to say. "I mean, ye are the more independent."

"Dinna try to mend it, lad," interrupted Willie; "ye said it right at first I am the more my ain man, and that I have been for nigh fifty years. Who could believe that usurpation could stand, or that God would let tyranny endure sac ever after that fatal day, when the strong put down the weak, and right bowed the head to wrong, I resolved to live within myself, use naething which bore the stamp of foreign trade upon it naething that supported the throne or upheld the state against the true blood of the royal line; and I have done this scruplously and shall do sae till I die."

I had heard of a Jacobite before, nay, I had seen one; not a Jacobin, an animal of a darker colour and more deadly bite; but I had not heard such stern principles of opposition to the opinion of the bulk of the people laid so decidedly down. Though very young, I had sense enough to see that most of the people called Jacobites were only so from the teeth outwards, and who put on the livery of the party from a spirit of opposition rather than of princi. ple. They would no more have hungered and thirsted for the house of Stuart than they would have fought and died for them. Some

thing of this sort seemed to be pass ing through the mind of Skipper Kinchrape: I heard him mutter, “A bitter Jacobite-a black Romaner.” He then took two turns on his quarter-deck, as he called the platform on which we stood, and said, "I jalouse who ye mean when ye speak about usurpation and tyranny, and I think I see yere drift when ye talk of wrang overcoming right; but how ye can hope to make the wind blow into your ain port, and the tide, whilk obeys but the moon, flow as ye desire, by wearing brecks of yere ain shaping, shoon of yere sew• ing, and refusing to put sugar in yere hollands-and-water, surpasses my descriving,' as ane of yere ain sangs says."

6

"That's the wisest word I have

heard out of yere head yet, bit o's

weh it bo" said