celled the rest,--
Nae mair be envied by the tattling gang
When Patie kissed me when I danced or sang;
Nae mair, alake! we'll on the meadows play,
And rin half-breathless round the rucks of hay,
As aft-times I have fled from thee right fain,
And fa'n on purpose, that I might be tane.'--

But Patie reiterates his vows to her, and Peggy, comforted, declares she
will set herself to learn 'gentler charms, through ilka school where I
may manners learn.' Patie applauds her resolution, but declares that

----'without a' the little helps of art
Thy native sweets might gain a prince's heart,
Yet now, lest in our station we offend,
We must learn modes to innocence unken'd.'

The scene closes with Peggy's vows of fidelity. In this scene Ramsay
touched the high-water mark of his genius, and for the elements of
simplicity, strength, and propriety of the sentiments expressed by each
character with the root-idea of that character, it is rivalled by very
few scenes of its kind in the literature of our land.

The first scene of the last Act opens with Bauldy's fright. He had gone
to fulfil his engagement to meet Mause, the pretended witch, who was to
turn Peggy's heart to him. But as he had insulted Madge, Peggy's aunt,
in the fore part of the day, the latter, to punish him by taking
advantage of his dread of ghosts, meets him at the dead hour of the
night when he is repairing to Mause's cottage. She is draped in a white
sheet, and utters ghastly groans. Bauldy, having sunk terror-stricken to
the ground, is soundly cuffed and trounced by the two women. As soon,
therefore, as daylight breaks, he seeks an interview with Sir William to
entreat redress. The latter, who had been passing the night in Symon's
house, enters fully into the spirit of the joke, and orders Mause to be
brought before him.

The second scene exhibits Glaud's 'onstead' again, and the family
preparing to go down to Symon's to take their leave of Patie. Peggy is
very sad,--so much so that her sharp-tongued aunt cannot refrain from
jeering at it--

'Poor Meg!--Look, Jenny, was the like e'er seen?
How bleared and red wi' greetin' look her een!
This day her brankan wooer taks his horse
To strut a gentle spark at Edinburgh Cross.
But Meg, poor Meg! maun wi' the shepherds stay,
And tak what God will send in hodden gray.'

To this ill-timed speech Peggy makes a pathetic reply, that must have
caused