of the mossy walls
of the sheepfold--take a drop of Glenlivet--and philosophise.

Hollo! Hamish, who are these strange, suspicious-looking strangers
thitherwards-bound, as hallan-shaker a set as may be seen on an August
day? Ay, ay, we ken the clan. A week's residence to a man of gumption
gives an insight into a neighbourhood. Unerring physiognomists and
phrenologists are we, and what with instinctive, and what with intuitive
knowledge, we keek in a moment through all disguise. He in the centre of
the group is the stickit minister--on his right stands the drunken
dominie--on his left the captain, who in that raised look retains token
of _delirium tremens_--the land-louper behind him is the land-measurer,
who would be well to do in the world were he "monarch of all he
surveyed,"--but has been long out at elbows, and his society not much
courted since he was rude to the auld wife at the time the gudeman was
at the peats. That fine tall youth, the widow's son in Gleno, and his
friend the Sketcher, with his portfolio under his arm, are in
indifferent company, Hamish; but who, pray, may be the phenomenon in
plush, with bow and arrow, and tasseled horn, bonnet jauntily screwed to
the sinister, glass stuck in socket, and precisely in the middle of his
puckered mouth a cigar. You do not say so--a grocer's apprentice from
the Gorbals!

No need of confabulating there, gemmen, on the knowe--come forward and
confront Christopher North. We find we have been too severe in our
strictures. After all, they are not a bad set of fellows, as the world
goes--imprudence must not be too harshly condemned--Shakespeare taught
us to see the soul of good in things evil--these two are excellent lads;
and, as for impertinence, it often proceeds from _mauvais honte_, and
with a glance we shall replace the archer behind his counter.

How goes it, Cappy? Rather stiff in the back, minister, with the mouth
of the fowling-piece peeping out between the tails of your long coat,
and the butt at the back of your head, by way of bolster? You will find
it more comfortable to have her in hand. That bamboo, dominie, is well
known to be an air-gun. Have you your horse-pistol with you to-day,
surveyor? Sagittarius, think you, you could hit, at twoscore, a
haystack flying? Sit down, gentlemen, and let's have a crack.

So ho! so ho! so ho! We see her black eyes beneath a primrose tuft on
the brae. In spring all one bank of blossoms; but 'tis barish now and
shee