" replied their opponents.

The rain again returned as I was engaged in examining the graphic
granite of the Portsoy vein; the breeze from the sea heightened into a
gale, that soon fringed the coast with a broad border of foam; and I
entered the town, which looked but indifferently well in its gray
dishabille of haze and spray, tolerably wet and worn, with but the
prospect before me of being weather-bound for the rest of the day. I
found an old-fashioned inn, kept by somewhat old-fashioned people, who
had lately come from the country to "open a public;" and ensconced
myself by the fireside, in a huge many-windowed room, that must have
witnessed the county dinners of at least a century ago. Soon wearying,
however, of hearing the rain beating mad-like ratans upon the panes, and
availing myself of a comparatively "lucid interval," I sallied out,
wrapped up in my plaid, to examine the serpentine beds in the
neighborhood, which produce what is so extensively known as the Portsoy
marble. The _beds_ or _veins_ of this substance,--for it is still a moot
point whether they occur here as mere insulated masses of contemporary
origin with the primary formations which surround them, or as Plutonic
dykes injected into fissures at a later period,--are of very
considerable extent, one of them measuring about twenty-five yards
across, and another considerably more than a quarter of a mile; and, had
they but the solidity of the true marbles, they would scarce fail to be
regarded as valuable quarries of a highly ornamental stone, admirably
suited for the interior decorations of the architect. But they are
unluckily what the quarrier would term rubbly,--traversed by an infinity
of cracks and fissures; and it is rare indeed to find a continuous mass
out of which a chimney-jamb or lintel could be fashioned. The serpentine
was wrought here considerably more than a century and a half ago, and
exported to France for the magnificent Palace of Versailles; which,
though regarded by the French nation, says Voltaire, as "a favorite
without merit," Louis the Fourteenth persisted at the time in lavishly
beautifying, and looked as for abroad as Portsoy for materials with
which to adorn it. I have, however, seen it stated that the greater part
of a ship's cargo, brought afterwards to Paris on speculation, was
suffered to lie unwrought for years in the stone-dealer's yard, and was
ultimately disposed of as rubbish,--a consequence, probably, of its
unfitn