sin and misery. The milk-cows were nipping the
clovery parks, and chewing their cuds at their leisure;--the wild
partridges whidding about in pairs, or birring their wings with fright
over the hedges;--and the blue-bonneted ploughmen on the road cracking
their whips in wantonness, and whistling along amid the clean straw in
their carts. And then the rows of snug cottages, with their kailyards
and their goose-berry bushes, with the fruit hanging from the branches
like ear-rings on the neck of a lady of fashion. How happy, thought we
both--both Peter Farrel and me--how happy might they be, who, without
worldly pride or ambition, passed their days in such situations, in the
society of their wives and children. Ah! such were a blissful lot!

During our ride, Peter Farrel and I had an immense deal of rational
conversation on a variety of matters, Peter having seen great part of the
world in his youth, from having made two voyages to Greenland, during one
of which he was very nearly frozen up--with his uncle, who was the mate
of a whale-vessel. To relate all that Peter told me he had seen and
witnessed in his far-away travels, among the white bears, and the frozen
seas, would take up a great deal of the reader's time, and of my paper;
but as to its being very diverting, there is no doubt of that. However,
when Peter came to the years of discretion, Peter had sense enough in his
noddle to discover, that "a rowing stane gathers no fog"; and, having got
an inkling of the penny-pie manufacture when he was a wee smout, he yoked
to the baking trade tooth and nail; and, in the course of years, thumped
butter-bakes with his elbows to some purpose; so that, at the time of our
colleaguing together, Peter was well to do in the world--had bought his
own bounds, and built new ones--could lay down the blunt for his article,
and take the measure of the markets, by laying up wheat in his granaries
against the day of trouble--to wit--rise of prices.

"Well, Peter," said I to him, "seeing that ye read the newspapers, and
have a notion of things, what think ye, just at the present moment, of
affairs in general?"

Peter cocked up his lugs at this appeal, and, looking as wise as if he
had been Solomon's nephew, gave a knowing smirk, and said--

"Is it foreign or domestic affairs that you are after, Maister Wauch? for
the question is a six-quarters wide one."

I was determined not to be beat by man of woman born; so I answered with
almo