continued silent for some
moments, then suddenly returning, as it were, to a sense of the
circumstances in which he was placed, he brought his hands over his
forehead and eyes, as one recovering from an agony of painful and
melancholy thoughts. Surprised by this extraordinary conduct of his
guest, the landlord of the house began to conceive that he had got into
the company of a madman; yet he marvelled much what description of
madness it could be, since it was made evident only when the queen was
spoken of--the stranger speaking on all other subjects rationally and
composedly.

"She walks not much abroad, you say, my friend?" said the latter,
resuming the conversation which he had broken off to give utterance to
the rhapsody which has just been quoted.

"Very seldom, sir," replied mine host; "for ye see she doesna fin hersel
quite at hame yet amang us; but she'll come to by and by, I've nae
doot."

"And she is not easy of access, you say--no chance of one being able to
throw himself in her way?"

"Unco little, I should think," replied mine host, "unless she could be
fa'n in wi' gaun to the chapel to mass; for she still abides by thae
abominations, for a' John Knox can say till her."

A flush of resentment and indignation crossed the pale countenance of
the stranger at the last expressions of the innkeeper, and he threw a
glance at him strongly expressive of these feelings, but suddenly
checked himself, paused for a moment, and then resumed his queries in
the calm and gentle tones which seemed natural to him--

"How likes she the country, know ye?

"Indeed, I canna weel say," replied mine host; "but I rather doot, frae
what I hear, she's no athegither reconciled till't yet. She thinks, I
daursay, we're rather a roughspun set o' folk--a wee thing coorse i' the
grain or sae."

"Ay, that ye are, that ye are," said the stranger, with more candour
than courtesy, again throwing himself back in his chair, and again
beginning to rhapsodise as before. "She is among ye--the beautiful, the
gentle, the accomplished, the refined--as a fawn amongst a herd of
bears. She is in your wild and savage land, like a lovely and tender
flower growing in the cleft of a rock--a sweet and gentle thing,
blooming alone in the midst of rudeness and barrenness. Oh, uncongenial
soil! Oh, discordant association! Dearest, cruellest, loveliest of thy
sex!"

If mine host was amazed at the first outpouring of his guest's excited
mind, it will