lay before sic weir men,
Since Habbie's dead!
Elegy on Habbie Simpson.

The cavalcade of horsemen on their road to the little borough-town were
preceded by Niel Blane, the town-piper, mounted on his white galloway,
armed with his dirk and broadsword, and bearing a chanter streaming with
as many ribbons as would deck out six country belles for a fair or
preaching. Niel, a clean, tight, well-timbered, long-winded fellow, had
gained the official situation of town-piper of--by his merit, with all
the emoluments thereof; namely, the Piper's Croft, as it is still called,
a field of about an acre in extent, five merks, and a new livery-coat of
the town's colours, yearly; some hopes of a dollar upon the day of the
election of magistrates, providing the provost were able and willing to
afford such a gratuity; and the privilege of paying, at all the
respectable houses in the neighbourhood, an annual visit at spring-time,
to rejoice their hearts with his music, to comfort his own with their ale
and brandy, and to beg from each a modicum of seed-corn.

In addition to these inestimable advantages, Niel's personal, or
professional, accomplishments won the heart of a jolly widow, who then
kept the principal change-house in the borough. Her former husband having
been a strict presbyterian, of such note that he usually went among his
sect by the name of Gaius the publican, many of the more rigid were
scandalized by the profession of the successor whom his relict had chosen
for a second helpmate. As the browst (or brewing) of the Howff retained,
nevertheless, its unrivalled reputation, most of the old customers
continued to give it a preference. The character of the new landlord,
indeed, was of that accommodating kind, which enabled him, by close
attention to the helm, to keep his little vessel pretty steady amid the
contending tides of faction. He was a good-humoured, shrewd, selfish sort
of fellow, indifferent alike to the disputes about church and state, and
only anxious to secure the good-will of customers of every description.
But his character, as well as the state of the country, will be best
understood by giving the reader an account of the instructions which he
issued to his daughter, a girl about eighteen, whom he was initiating in
those cares which had been faithfully discharged by his wife, until about
six months before our story commences, when the honest woman had