ut without minding Sunday or Saturday." Here he was
interrupted by some thing which fell with a heavy clash on the street
before us. "Gude guide us! what's this mair o't--Mattie, haud up the
lantern--conscience! if it isna the keys! Weel, that's just as
well--they cost the burgh siller, and there might hae been some
clavers about the loss o' them--O, an Bailie Grahame were to get word
o' this nicht's job, it wad be a sair hair in my neck!"

As we were still but a few steps from the tolbooth door, we carried
back these implements of office, and consigned them to the head
jailer, who, in lieu of the usual mode of making good his post by
turning the keys, was keeping sentry in the vestibule till the arrival
of some assistant whom he had summoned in order to replace Celtic
fugitive Dougal.

Having discharged this piece of duty to the burgh, and my road lying
the same way with the honest magistrate's, I profited by the light of
his lantern, and he by my arm, to find our way through the streets,
which, whatever they may now be, were then dark, uneven, and
ill-paved. Age is easily propitiated by attentions from the young. The
Bailie exprest himself interested in me, and added, "That since I was
nane o' that play-acting and play-ganging generation, whom his saul
hated, he wad eat a reisted haddock, or a fresh herring, at breakfast
wi' him the morn, and meet my friend, Mr. Owen, whom, by that time, he
would place at liberty."

"My dear sir," said I, when I had accepted of the invitation with
thanks, "how could you possibly connect me with the stage?"

"I watna," replied Mr. Jarvie; "it was a bletherin' phrasin' chield
they ca' Fairservice that cam at e'en to get an order to send the
crier through the toun for ye at skreigh o' day the morn. He tell't me
whae ye were, and how ye were sent frae your father's house because ye
wadna be a dealer, and that ye michtna disgrace your family wi'
ganging on the stage. Ane Hammorgaw, our precentor, brought him here,
and said he was an auld acquaintance; but I sent them baith awa' wi' a
flae in their lug for bringing me sic an errand on sic a night. But I
see he's a fule-creature a' thegither and clean mista'en about ye. I
like ye, man," he continued; "I like a lad that will stand by his
friends in troubles--I ay did it mysell, and sae did the deacon my
father, rest and bless him! But he suldna keep ower muckle company wi'
Hielandmen and thae wild cattle. Can a man touch pitch and no be