ly, that
their progress is almost imperceptible, and anon abridge their journey
by springing over the intervening chasms which cross their path, with
the assistance of their pilgrim-staves. Or, to make a briefer simile,
the course of story-telling which we have for the present adopted,
resembles the original discipline of the dragoons, who were trained to
serve either on foot or horseback, as the emergencies of the service
required. With this explanation, we shall proceed to narrate some
circumstances which Alan Fairford did not, and could not, write to his
correspondent.

Our reader, we trust, has formed somewhat approaching to a distinct
idea of the principal characters who have appeared before him during
our narrative; but in case our good opinion of his sagacity has been
exaggerated, and in order to satisfy such as are addicted to the
laudable practice of SKIPPING (with whom we have at times a strong
fellow-feeling), the following particulars may not be superfluous.

Mr. Saunders Fairford, as he was usually called, was a man of business
of the old school, moderate in his charges, economical and even
niggardly in his expenditure, strictly honest in conducting his own
affairs and those of his clients, but taught by long experience to be
wary and suspicious in observing the motions of others. Punctual as the
clock of Saint Giles tolled nine, the neat dapper form of the little
hale old gentleman was seen at the threshold of the court hall, or at
farthest, at the head of the Back Stairs, trimly dressed in a complete
suit of snuff-coloured brown, with stockings of silk or woollen as,
suited the weather; a bob-wig, and a small cocked hat; shoes blacked
as Warren would have blacked them; silver shoe-buckles, and a gold
stock-buckle. A nosegay in summer, and a sprig of holly in winter,
completed his well-known dress and appearance. His manners corresponded
with his attire, for they were scrupulously civil, and not a little
formal. He was an elder of the kirk, and, of course, zealous for King
George and the Government even to slaying, as he had showed by taking
up arms in their cause. But then, as he had clients and connexions
of business among families of opposite political tenets, he was
particularly cautious to use all the conventional phrases which the
civility of the time had devised, as an admissible mode of language
betwixt the two parties. Thus he spoke sometimes of the Chevalier, but
never either of the Prince, whi