he Church of the Dominicans
at this place, and becoming a king and patriot because he had been a
church-breaker and a murderer. The present Dumfriezers remember and
justify the deed, observing it was only a papist church--in evidence
whereof, its walls have been so completely demolished that no vestiges
of them remain. They are a sturdy set of true-blue Presbyterians, these
burghers of Dumfries; men after your father's own heart, zealous for the
Protestant succession--the rather that many of the great families around
are suspected to be of a different way of thinking, and shared, a great
many of them, in the insurrection of the Fifteen, and some in the more
recent business of the Forty-five. The town itself suffered in the
latter era; for Lord Elcho, with a large party of the rebels, levied
a severe contribution upon Dumfries, on account of the citizens having
annoyed the rear of the Chevalier during his march into England.

Many of these particulars I learned from Provost C--, who, happening to
see me in the market-place, remembered that I was an intimate of your
father's, and very kindly asked me to dinner. Pray tell your father that
the effects of his kindness to me follow me everywhere. I became tired,
however, of this pretty town in the course of twenty-four hours, and
crept along the coast eastwards, amusing myself with looking out for
objects of antiquity, and sometimes making, or attempting to make, use
of my new angling-rod. By the way, old Cotton's instructions, by which
I hoped to qualify myself for one of the gentle society of anglers, are
not worth a farthing for this meridian. I learned this by mere accident,
after I had waited four mortal hours. I shall never forget an impudent
urchin, a cowherd, about twelve years old, without either brogue or
bonnet, barelegged, and with a very indifferent pair of breeches--how
the villain grinned in scorn at my landing-net, my plummet, and the
gorgeous jury of flies which I had assembled to destroy all the fish
in the river. I was induced at last to lend the rod to the sneering
scoundrel, to see what he would make of it; and he had not only half
filled my basket in an hour, but literally taught me to kill two trouts
with my own hand. This, and Sam having found the hay and oats, not
forgetting the ale, very good at this small inn, first made me take
the fancy of resting here for a day or two; and I have got my grinning
blackguard of a piscator leave to attend on me, by p