een
us, our arrears o' rent will be paid up. My bargain was guid; but I
freely admit yours is better."

"Then this affair is at last arranged?" said the youth.

The farmer assented. The worthy couple bade adieu to their friends, and
proceeded on their way to Kelpiehaugh. We cannot tell what explanations
took place at Langholm between the young man and his parents; neither
can we tell precisely the import of the conversation that took place
between the farmer and his wife on their journey homewards; but we
strongly suspect they enjoyed a hearty laugh at the clever manoeuvre
of the dame. It is probable that Giles himself was in the secret; at
least the good-humour he exhibited in getting again possession of his
spouse would lead us to believe that he had been a willing party in the
plot that had been so cleverly laid and executed. How far the daughter
was to blame has not been recorded; and, to do justice to the farmer and
his wife, they never taxed her with indiscretion. She was some time
afterwards married, and so put beyond the power of the wild youth who
had been so completely foiled by the genius of a clever dame.

SIR PATRICK HUME.

A TALE OF THE HOUSE OF MARCHMONT.

Sir Patrick Hume of Polwarth was elected representative of the County of
Berwick in the year 1665, being then in the twenty-fifth year of his
age. He was a lover of freedom, a lover of his country, and a staunch
Presbyterian. In those days, however, a love of freedom was a dangerous
principle either to avow or to carry into Parliament. The tyrant
Charles, whom some falsely call the Merry Monarch, was then attempting
to rule the empire with a rod of iron. You have all heard of his Long
Parliament, and of his afterwards governing the country, like an
absolute tyrant, without a Parliament at all. Fettered and servile as
parliaments then were, young Hume had boldly stood forward as the
advocate of civil and religious liberty; and, when the arbitrary monarch
sent down a mandate to Scotland for a levy of men and of money, that he
might carry his plans of despotism the more effectually into execution,
Sir Patrick resisted the slavishness with which it was about to be
obeyed.

"What!" exclaimed he, "are we mere instruments in the hands of the
king--creatures appointed to minister to his pleasure? Are we not
representatives of the people of Scotland--the representatives of their
wants and their wishes, and the defenders of their rights? And shall