have retired from the cave, Lovel likewise leaves it, and arrives safely on board of the vessel.

The success of the first adventure among the ruins of St. Ruth being related to Oldbuck, he resolves to make a second attempt, which shall put the reality of the adept's skill to the proof; and, accompanied by Sir Arthur, and Dousterswivel, who reluctantly follows them, and assisted by labourers with proper implements, they proceed towards the cave, where they are joined by Edie Ochiltree. They dig, and find a number of ingots of silver. The adept gives himself airs of consequence, in the presence of the baronet and Oldbuck, upon this discovery; but lingers behind them, to give vent to his feelings of rage and disappointment, in not having secured the treasure for himself. Edie, who overhears his soliloquies, proposes that they should revisit the ruins that night, and, provided with implements, again make a search. This is agreed to; and Edie Ochiltree ar rives at the cave, in a stormy night, which is thus powerfully described:

"He wrapped himself close in his cloak, and fixed his eye on the moon as she waded amid the stormy and dusky clouds, which the wind from time to time drove across her surface. The melancholy and uncertain gleams that she shot from between the passing shadows fell full upon the rifted arches and the shafted windows of the old building, which were thus for an instant made distinctly visible in their ruinous state, and anon became a dark, undistinguished, and shadowy mass. The little lake had its share of these transient beams of light, and shewed its waters broken, whitened, and agitated under the passing storm, which, when the clouds passed over the moon, were only distinguished by their sullen and murmuring plash against the beach. The wooded glen repeated to every successive gust that hurried through its narrow trough, the deep and various groan with which the trees replied to the whirlwind, and the sound sunk again, as the blast passed away, into a faint and passing murmur, resembling the sighs of an exhausted criminal after the first pangs of his torture are over. In these sounds, superstition might have found ample gratification for that state of excited terror which she fears and yet loves. But such feelings made no part of Ochiltree's composition. His mind wandered back to the scenes of his youth."

The adept arrives, and the old man makes him descend into the pit which had been dug; from which, after labouring for a long time in vain, the adept emerges, extremely fatigued. Edie Ochiltree then takes his place; and having by his taunts enraged the German, the laiter aims a blow at his head with a mattock-and at this moment Dousterwivel himself is struck to the ground by some one behind him, where he is left insensible. Upon recovering his senses, he

finds himself alone; and, led by a solemn strain of music, he advances towards the spot from whence it proceeds; and there discovers that a funeral-ceremony is performing. We are next introduced into the cottage of Saunders Mucklebacket, a fisherman; and the truth of representation is so vivid, that we cannot refrain from giving the picture:

"We must now introduce our reader to the interior of the fisher's cottage mentioned in chapter ninth of the first volume of this edifying history. I wish I could say that its inside was well arranged, decently farnished, or tolerably clean. On the contrary, I am counpelled to admit, there was confusion-there was dilapidation-there was dirt good store. Yet, with all this, there was about the inmates, Luckie Mucklebacket and her family, an appearance of ease, plenty, and comfort, that seemed to warrant their own sluttish proverb, The clartier the cosier. A huge fire, though the season was summer, occupied the hearth, and served at once for affording light, heat, and the means of preparing food. The fishing had been successful, and the family, with customary improvidence, had, since unlading the cargo, continued an unintermitting operation of broiling and frying that part of the produce reserved for home-consumption, and the bones and fragments lay on the wooden trenchers, mingled with morsels of broken bannocks and shattered mugs of half-drunk beer. The stout and athletic form of Maggie herself, bustling here and there among a pack of half-grown girls and younger children, of whom she chucked one now here and another now there, with an exclamation of "Get out o' the gate, ye little sorrow!" was well contrasted with the passive and half-stupified look and manner of her husband's mother, a woman advanced to the latest stage of human life, who was seated in her wonted chair close by the fire, the warmth of which she coveted, yet hardly seemed to be sensible of, now muttering to herself, now smiling vacantly to the children, as they pulled the strings of her toy or close cap, or twitched her blue checked apron. With her distaff in her bosom, and her spindle in her hand, she plied lazily and mechanically the oldfashioned Scottish thrift, according to the old-fashioned Scottish manner. The younger children, crawling aniong the feet of the elder, watched the progress of grannie's spindle as it twisted, and now and then ventured to interrupt its progress, as it danced upon the floor in those vagaries which the more regulated spinning-wheel has now universally superseded. Late as the hour was, (and it was long past midnight,) the whole family were still on foot, and far from proposing to go to bed; the dame was still busy broiling car-cakes on the girdle, and the elder girl, the half-naked mermaid elsewhere commemorated, was preparing a pile of Findhorn haddocks, (that is, haddocks smoaked with green wood,) to be eaten along with these relishing provisions.

"Whilst they were thus employed, a slight tap at the door, accompa nied with the question, Are ye up yet, sirs?' announced a visitor. The answer, Aye, aye,-come your ways ben, hinny,' occasioned the lifting of the latch, and Jenny Rintherout, the female domestic of the Antiquary, made her appearance.

"Aye, aye,' exclaimed the mistress of the family,-hegh, sirs! can this be you, Jenny? a sight o' you's gude for sair een, lass.'

"O, woman, we've been ta'en up wi' Captain Hector's wound up-bye, that I have na had my fit out ower the door this fortnight; but he's better

now, and auld Caxon sleeps in his room, in case he wanted ony thing. Sae, as soon as our auld folk gaed to bed, I e'en snooded my head up a bit, and left the house-door on the latch, in case ony body should be wanting in or out while I was awa, and just cam down the gate to see an' there was ony cracks amang ye.'

"Aye, aye,' answered Luckie Mucklebacket, I see ye hae gotten a' your braws on-ye're looking about for Steenie now-but he's no at hame the night-and ye'll no do for Steenie, lass-a feckless thing like you's no fit to maintain a man.'

"Steenie will no do for me,' retorted Jenny, with a toss of the head that might have become a higher-born damsel,—I maun hae a man that can maintain his wife.'

"Ou aye, hinny-thae's your landward and burrows-town notions. My certie! fisher-wives ken better-they keep the man, and keep the house, and keep the siller too, lass.'

"A wheen poor drudges ye are,' answered the nymph of the land to the nymph of the sea. As sune as the keel o' the coble touches the sand, de'il a bit mair will the lazy fisher loons work, but the wives maun kilt their coats, and wade into the surf to tak' the fish ashore. And then the man casts aff the wat, and puts on the dry, and sits down wi' his pipe and his gill-stoup behint the ingle like ony auld houdie, and ne'er a turn will he do till the coble's afloat again!-And the wife, she maun get the scull on her back, and awa wi' the fish to the next burrows town, and scauld and ban wi' ilka wife that will scauld and ban wi' her till it's sauld -and that's the gait fisher-wives live, puir slaving bodies.'

""Slaves? gae wa', lass!-Ca' the head o' the house slaves? little ye ken about it, lass--shew me a word my Saunders daur speak, or a turn he daur do about the house, without it be just to tak his meat, and his drink, and his diversion like ony o' the weans. He has mair sense than to ca ony thing about the bigging his ain, frae the rooftree down to a crackit trencher on the bink. He kens weel aneugh wha feeds him and cleeds him, and keeps a tight thack and rape, when his coble is jowing awa' in the Firth, poor fallow. Na, na, lass-them that sell the goods guide the purse them that guide the purse rule the house-shew me ane o' your bits o' farmer-bodies, that wad let their wife drive the stock to the market, and ca' in the debts. Na, na.'

We now discover that the funeral-ceremony witnessed by Dousterswivel, is performed on occasion of the death of the Countess of Glenallan. At this place the tragic interest of the story commences; and the person who excites this interest is the old woman, whose appearance has just been described, as one of the inhabitants of the fisherman's hut. Next morning, the old beggar advances to take his leave of this old woman, before proceeding on his route:

"Gude day to ye, cummer, and mony ane o' them. I will be back about the fore-end o' har'st, and I trust to find ye baith haill and fere.' "Pray that ye may find me in my quiet grave,' said the old woman in a hollow and sepulchral voice, but without the agitation of a single feature.

"Ye're auld, cummer, and sae am I mysel; but we maun abide HIS will-we'll no be forgotten in his good time.'

"Nor our deeds neither,' said the crone; 'what's dune in the body maun be answered in the spirit.'

"I wot that's true; and I may weel tak the tale hame to mysel, that hae led a misruled and roving life. But ye were aye a canny wife. We're a' frail-but ye canna hae sae muckle to bow ye down.'

""Less than I might have had-but mair, O far mair, than wad sink the stoutest brig e'er sailed out o' Fairport harbour!-Didna somebody say yestreen-at least sae it is borne in on my mind-but auld folk hae weak fancies-did not somebody say, the Joscelind, Countess of Glenallan, was departed frae life?'

"They said the truth whaever said it,' answered the mendicant; 'she was buried yestreen by torch-light at St. Ruth's; and I, like a fule, gat a gliff wi' seeing the lights and the riders.'

"It was their fashion since the days of the Great Earl that was killed at Harlaw. They did it to shew scorn that they should die and be buried like other mortals. The wives o' the house of Glenallan wailed nae wail for the husband, nor the sister for the brother. But is she e'en ca'd to the lang account.'

"As sure,' answered Edie, as we maun a' abide it.' “Then I'll unlade my mind, come o't what will.'

"This she spoke with more alacrity than usually attended her expression, and accompanied her words with an attitude of the hand, as if throwing something from her. She then raised up her form, once tall, and still retaining the appearance of having been so, though bent with age and rheumatism, and stood before the beggar like a mummy animated by some wandering spirit into a temporary resurrection. Her light-blue eyes wandered to and fro, as if she occasionally forgot and again remembered the purpose for which her long and withered band was searching among the miscellaneous contents of an ample old-fashioned pocket. At length, she pulled out a small chip-box, and opening it, took out a handsome ring, in which was set a braid of hair, composed of two different colours, black and light brown, twined together, encircled with brilliants of considerable value.

""Gude man,' she said to Ochiltree, as ye wad e'er deserve mercy, ye maun gang my errand to the house of Glenallan, and ask for the Earl.' "The Earl of Glenallan, cummer! ou, he winna see ony o' the gentles o' the country, and what likelihood is there that he wad see the like o' an auld gaberlunzie?'

Gang your ways, and try-and tell him that Elspeth o' the Craigburnfoot-he'll mind me best by that name-maun see him, or she be relieved frae her lang pilgrimage; and that she sends him that ring in token of the business she wad speak o'.'"

With this embassy Edie Ochiltree is dispatched ;-and-we learn that the Countess of Glenallan, a woman of a proud and lofty character, and a Catholic, had been left a widow with two sons in the space of two years after her marriage. The conversion of the second son to Protestantism, had given mortal offence to his mother; and in disgust he quits his home, and retires into England. The elder, who at this period of the story has succeeded to the title, has caught all the gloom and severity of bis mother's mind, and resides

in solitude at the family-mansion, apparently with the consciousness of some secret sin on his conscience. The messenger of old Elspeth arrives at the house on the day of a general distribution of alins.

"A good turn,' said Edie to himself, never goes unrewared.—I'll maybe get a gude awmous that I wad hae missed but for trotting on this auld wife's errand.'

"Accordingly, he ranked up with the rest of this ragged regiment, assuming a station as near the front as possible-a distinction due, as he conceived, to his blue gown and badge, no less than to his years and experience; but he soon found there was another principle of precedence in this assembly, to which he had not averted.

"Are ye a triple man, friend, that ye press forward sae bauldly? I'm thinking no, for there's nae Catholics wear that badge.'

"Na, na, I am no a Roman,' said Edie.

"Then shank yoursel awa' to the double folk, or single folk, that's the Episcopals or Presbyterians yonder-it's a shame to see a heretic hae sic a lang white beard, that would do credit to a hermit.'

"Ochiltree, thus rejected from the society of the Catholic mendicants, or those who called themselves such, went to station himself with the paupers of the communion of the church of England, to whom the noble donor allotted a double portion of his charity. But never was a poor occasional conformist more roughly rejected by a High-church congregation, even when that matter was furiously agitated in the days of good Queen Anne.

"See to him wi' his badge!' they said; he hears ane o' the king's Presbyterian chaplains sough out a sermon on the morning of every birthday, and now he would pass himsel for ane o' the Episcopal church! Na, na! We'll take care o' that.'

"Edie, thus rejected by Rome and prelacy, was fain to shelter himself from the laughter of his brethren among the thin group of Presbyterians, who had either disdained to disguise their religious opinions for the sake of an augmented dole, or perhaps knew they could not attempt the imposition without a certainty of detection."

Here he recognizes in one of the domestics, an old fellowsoldier, through whose good offices be is introduced to the Earl in person. He delivers his token, which is received by the earl with borrible recognition; and he promises to visit Elspeth at the cottage. Edie Ochiltree, travelling homeward, is informed of the death of the son of the old fisherman, who has perished at sea. The Antiquary, as landlord of the deceased, attends the funeral, the circumstances of which are detailed with much force and nature.

"The Antiquary, being now alone, hastened his pace, which had been retarded by these various discussions and the rencontre which had closed them, and soon arrived before the half-dozen cottages at Mussel-crag. They now had, in addition to their usual squalid and uncomfortable appearance, the melancholy attributes of the house of mourning. The boats were all drawn up on the beach; and though the day was fine, and the