service to the attendant, welcomed the
stranger to Gandercleugh, and, in the same breath, enquired, "What news
from the south hielands?"

"News?" said the farmer, "bad eneugh news, I think;--an we can carry
through the yowes, it will be a' we can do; we maun e'en leave the lambs
to the Black Dwarfs care."

"Ay, ay," subjoined the old shepherd (for such he was), shaking his
head, "he'll be unco busy amang the morts this season."

"The Black Dwarf!" said MY LEARNED FRIEND AND PATRON, Mr. Jedediah
Cleishbotham, "and what sort of a personage may he be?"

[We have, in this and other instances, printed in italics (CAPITALS
in this etext) some few words which the worthy editor, Mr. Jedediah
Cleishbotham, seems to have interpolated upon the text of his deceased
friend, Mr. Pattieson. We must observe, once for all, that such
liberties seem only to have been taken by the learned gentleman where
his own character and conduct are concerned; and surely he must be the
best judge of the style in which his own character and conduct should be
treated of.]

"Hout awa, man," answered the farmer, "ye'll hae heard o' Canny Elshie
the Black Dwarf, or I am muckle mistaen--A' the warld tells tales about
him, but it's but daft nonsense after a'--I dinna believe a word o't
frae beginning to end."

"Your father believed it unco stievely, though," said the old man, to
whom the scepticism of his master gave obvious displeasure.

"Ay, very true, Bauldie, but that was in the time o' the
blackfaces--they believed a hantle queer things in thae days, that
naebody heeds since the lang sheep cam in."

"The mair's the pity, the mair's the pity," said the old man. "Your
father, and sae I have aften tell'd ye, maister, wad hae been sair vexed
to hae seen the auld peel-house wa's pu'd down to make park dykes; and
the bonny broomy knowe, where he liked sae weel to sit at e'en, wi' his
plaid about him, and look at the kye as they cam down the loaning, ill
wad he hae liked to hae seen that braw sunny knowe a' riven out wi' the
pleugh in the fashion it is at this day."

"Hout, Bauldie," replied the principal, "tak ye that dram the landlord's
offering ye, and never fash your head about the changes o' the warld,
sae lang as ye're blithe and bien yoursell."

"Wussing your health, sirs," said the shepherd; and having taken off his
glass, and observed the whisky was the right thing, he continued, "It's
no for the like o' us to be judging, to be sure; but