ged idly on
before, 'Stand to your beasts' heads, and make room for the Laird to
pass.'

'He shall have his share of the road,' answered a male gipsy from under
his slouched and large-brimmed hat, and without raising his face, 'and he
shall have nae mair; the highway is as free to our cuddies as to his
gelding.'

The tone of the man being sulky, and even menacing, Mr. Bertram thought
it best to put his dignity in his pocket, and pass by the procession
quietly, on such space as they chose to leave for his accommodation,
which was narrow enough. To cover with an appearance of indifference his
feeling of the want of respect with which he was treated, he addressed
one of the men, as he passed him without any show of greeting, salute, or
recognition--'Giles Baillie,' he said, 'have you heard that your son
Gabriel is well?' (The question respected the young man who had been
pressed.)

'If I had heard otherwise,' said the old man, looking up with a stern and
menacing countenance, 'you should have heard of it too.' And he plodded
on his way, tarrying no further question. [Footnote: This anecdote is a
literal fact.] When the Laird had pressed on with difficulty among a
crowd of familiar faces, which had on all former occasions marked his
approach with the reverence due to that of a superior being, but in which
he now only read hatred and contempt, and had got clear of the throng, he
could not help turning his horse, and looking back to mark the progress
of their march. The group would have been an excellent subject for the
pencil of Calotte. The van had already reached a small and stunted
thicket, which was at the bottom of the hill, and which gradually hid the
line of march until the last stragglers disappeared.

His sensations were bitter enough. The race, it is true, which he had
thus summarily dismissed from their ancient place of refuge, was idle and
vicious; but had he endeavoured to render them otherwise? They were not
more irregular characters now than they had been while they were admitted
to consider themselves as a sort of subordinate dependents of his family;
and ought the mere circumstance of his becoming a magistrate to have made
at once such a change in his conduct towards them? Some means of
reformation ought at least to have been tried before sending seven
families at once upon the wide world, and depriving them of a degree of
countenance which withheld them at least from atrocious guilt. There was
also a n