rather
better thing of the place than the modesty of his old-fashioned wages
would, unassisted, have amounted to. But the man was always very civil
to me. He had been long in the family, had enjoyed legacies, and lain by
a something of his own, upon which he now enjoys ease with dignity, in
as far as his newly-married wife, Tibbie Shortacres, will permit him.

The Lodging--dearest reader, if you are tired, pray pass over the
next four or five pages--was not by any means so large as its external
appearance led people to conjecture. The interior accommodation was much
cut up by cross walls and long passages, and that neglect of economizing
space which characterizes old Scottish architecture. But there was far
more room than my old friend required, even when she had, as was often
the case, four or five young cousins under her protection; and I believe
much of the house was unoccupied. Mrs. Bethune Baliol never, in my
presence, showed herself so much offended as once with a meddling person
who advised her to have the windows of these supernumerary apartments
built up to save the tax. She said in ire that, while she lived, the
light of God should visit the house of her fathers; and while she had
a penny, king and country should have their due. Indeed, she was
punctiliously loyal, even in that most staggering test of loyalty, the
payment of imposts. Mr. Beauffet told me he was ordered to offer a glass
of wine to the person who collected the income tax, and that the poor
man was so overcome by a reception so unwontedly generous, that he had
well-nigh fainted on the spot.

You entered by a matted anteroom into the eating-parlour, filled
with old-fashioned furniture, and hung with family portraits, which,
excepting one of Sir Bernard Bethune, in James the Sixth's time, said to
be by Jameson, were exceedingly frightful. A saloon, as it was called,
a long, narrow chamber, led out of the dining-parlour, and served for
a drawing-room. It was a pleasant apartment, looking out upon the south
flank of Holyrood House, the gigantic slope of Arthur's Seat, and the
girdle of lofty rocks called Salisbury Crags; objects so rudely wild,
that the mind can hardly conceive them to exist in the vicinage of a
populous metropolis. [The Rev. Mr. Bowles derives the name of these
crags, as of the Episcopal city in the west of England, from the same
root, both, in his opinion, which he very ably defends and illustrates,
having been the sites of Druidi