r a Unitarian preacher, from New
England. These gentlemen, when told on their arrival that Mr. Scott
was not at home, had shown such signs of impatience, that the servant
took it for granted they must have serious business, and asked if they
would wish to speak a word with his {p.288} lady. They grasped at
this, and so conducted themselves in the interview, that Mrs. Scott
never doubted they had brought letters of introduction to her husband,
and invited them accordingly to partake of her luncheon. They had been
walking about the house and grounds with her and her daughters ever
since that time, and appeared at the porch, when the Sheriff and his
party returned to dinner, as if they had been already fairly enrolled
on his visiting list. For the moment, he too was taken in--he fancied
that his wife must have received and opened their credentials--and
shook hands with them with courteous cordiality. But Mrs. Scott, with
all her overflowing good-nature, was a sharp observer; and she, before
a minute had elapsed, interrupted the ecstatic compliments of the
strangers, by reminding them that her husband would be glad to have
the letters of the friends who had been so good as to write by them.
It then turned out that there were no letters to be produced--and
Scott, signifying that his hour for dinner approached, added, that as
he supposed they meant to walk to Melrose, he could not trespass
further on their time. The two lion-hunters seemed quite unprepared
for this abrupt escape. But there was about Scott, in perfection, when
he chose to exert it, the power of civil repulsion; he bowed the
overwhelmed originals to his door, and on reentering the parlor, found
Mrs. Scott complaining very indignantly that they had gone so far as
to pull out their note-book, and beg an exact account, not only of his
age--but of her own. Scott, already half relenting, laughed heartily
at this misery. He observed, however, that, "if he were to take in all
the world, he had better put up a sign-post at once,--

'Porter, ale, and British spirits,
Painted bright between twa trees;'[118]

and that no traveller of respectability could ever be at a loss for
such an introduction as would insure his best {p.289} hospitality."
Still he was not quite pleased with what had happened--and as we were
about to pass, half an hour afterwards, from the drawing-room to the
dining-room, he said to his wife, "Hang the Yahoos, Charlotte--but we
should have bid t