angowan. Our bairns are hinging at our weary backs; look
that your braw cradle at hame be the fairer spread up; not that I am
wishing ill to little Harry, or to the babe that's yet to be born--God
forbid--and make them kind to the poor, and better folk than their
father! And now, ride e'en your ways; for these are the last words ye'll
ever hear Meg Merrilies speak, and this is the last reise that I'll ever
cut in the bonny woods of Ellangowan.'

So saying, she broke the sapling she held in her hand, and flung it into
the road. Margaret of Anjou, bestowing on her triumphant foes her
keen-edged malediction, could not have turned from them with a gesture
more proudly contemptuous. The Laird was clearing his voice to speak, and
thrusting his hand in his pocket to find a half-crown; the gipsy waited
neither for his reply nor his donation, but strode down the hill to
overtake the caravan.

Ellangowan rode pensively home; and it was remarkable that he did not
mention this interview to any of his family. The groom was not so
reserved; he told the story at great length to a full audience in the
kitchen, and concluded by swearing, that 'if ever the devil spoke by the
mouth of a woman, he had spoken by that of Meg Merrilies that blessed
day.'

CHAPTER IX
Paint Scotland greeting ower her thrissle,
Her mutchkin stoup as toom's a whistle,
And d--n'd excisemen in a bustle,
Seizing a stell,
Triumphant crushin't like a mussel,
Or lampit shell

BURNS.

During the period of Mr. Bertram's active magistracy, he did not forget
the affairs of the revenue. Smuggling, for which the Isle of Man then
afforded peculiar facilities, was general, or rather universal, all along
the southwestern coast of Scotland. Almost all the common people were
engaged in these practices; the gentry connived at them, and the officers
of the revenue were frequently discountenanced in the exercise of their
duty by those who should have protected them.

There was at this period, employed as a riding-officer or supervisor, in
that part of the country a certain Francis Kennedy, already named in our
narrative--a stout, resolute, and active man, who had made seizures to a
great amount, and was proportionally hated by those who had an interest
in the fair trade, as they called the pursuit of these contraband
adventurers. This person was natural son to a gentleman of good family,
owing to which circumstance, and t