two whole days in the week in addition, at the public-house, like the chief part of the labouring classes of towns? No, they do not expend in public-houses one-tenth of the time and money which are expended in such places by the town working classes.

The Philosopher asserts, that the inhabitants of towns are far more intelligent than those of the country. What has been the conduct of such of the inhabitants of towns as are of the same rank with the inhabitants of villages for many of the past years? What was this conduct in the days of Radicalism-in the days of Luddismwhile the Queen's frenzy raged-and what has it been during the days of Combination? The answer will suffice for the refutation of Mr M'Culloch. He is a perfect stranger to our towns, or a perfect stranger to our villages, or he made assertions to the committee which he knew to be groundless.

Want of space here compels us, against our wishes, to close our remarks on his evidence. We, perhaps, should not have noticed it at all, had it not been for its tendency to prevent the absentee landlords of Ireland from doing their duty. That landlord who gives up the cultivators of his estate who perhaps cannot leave it without actual starvation-into the hands of a

per centage agent, or middleman, to be stripped of their little property, fed on potatoes, clothed with rags, and plunged into the lowest abyss of penury, and barbarism,-that landlord is morally guilty of a crime against his species and his country, which cannot be surpassed in enormity. Compared with him, what evils does the common robber, who dies on the gallows, inflict on individuals and society? He' who defends this landlord, and prevents him from changing his conduct, is his accomplice in the crime. The feeling which now pervades the country, touching the conduct of the absentee landlords, will not, we trust, be stifled by the nonsense of Mr M'Culloch. We hope it will increase, until it force every one of them to take his estate under his own management. Many of them are now anxious to do their duty; if the remainder shelter themselves under the Philosopher, and persevere in their present course, we trust that at any rate they will not go unpunished. If the laws cannot reach men who consign their fellowcreatures, by hundreds and thousands, to extortion, oppression, want, and misery, the press and public opinion can reach them, and we hope that these will not be sparing in imprinting the brand, and inflicting the torture.

Ir was on a fine summer morning, somewhere about four o'clock, when I waukened from my night's rest, and was about thinking to bestir mysell, that I heard the sound of voices in the kail-yard, stretching south frae our back windows. I listened-and I listened and I better listened—and still the sound of the argle-bargleing became more distinct, now in a fleeching way, and now in harsh angry tones, as if some quarrelsome disagreement had ta'en place. I had na the comfort of my wife's company in this dilemmy; she being away, three days before, on the top of Tammy Trundle the carrier's cart, to Lauder, on a visit to her folks there; her mother, (my gudemother like) having been

for some time ill, with an income in her leg, which threatened to make a lamiter of her in her old age; the twa doctors there, no speaking of the blacksmith, and sundry skeely old women, being able to mak naething of the business; so nane happened to be wi' me in the room, saving wee Benjie, who was lying asleep at the back of the bed, with his little Kilmarnock on his head, as sound as a top. Nevertheless, Í lookit for my claes; and, opening one half of the window shutter, I saw four young birkies, well dressed, indeed three of them customers of my ain, all belanging to the toun; twa of them young doctors; ane of them a writer's clerk; and the ither a grocer; the haill looking very fierce

and fearsome, like turkey cocks; swaggering about with their hands and arms as if they had been the king's dragoons; and priming a pair of pistols, which ane of the surgeonts, a speerity, out-spoken lad, Maister Blister, was hadding in his grip.

Í jaloused at ance what they were after, being now a wee up to firearms; so I saw that skaith was to come o't; and that I wad be wanting in my duty on four heads,-first, as a Christian, second, as a man, third, as a subject, and fourth as a father, if I withheld mysell frae the scene; nor lifted up my voice, however fruitlessly, against such crying iniquity, as the wanton letting out of human blood; sae furth I hastened, half dressed, with my grey stockings rolled up my thighs, over my corduroys, and my auld hat aboon my cowl, to the kail-yard of contention.

I was just in the nick of time, and my presence checked the effusion of blood for a little-but wait a wee. So high and furious were at least three of the party, that I saw it was catching water in a sieve to waste words on them, knowing, as clearly as the sun serves the world, that interceding would be of no avail. Howsomever, I made a feint, and threatened to bowl away for a magistreet, if they wadna desist, and stop from their barbarous and bluidy purpose; but, i'fegs, I had better have keepit my counsel till it was asked for.

"and

"Tailor Mansie," quoth Maister Thomas Blister, with a furious cock of his eye; he was a queer Eirish birkie, come owre for his yedication; "since ye have ventured to thrust your nose, said he, "where nobody invited ye, you must just stay," said he, "and abide by the consequences. This is an affair of honour," quoth he; if ye venture to stir one foot from the spot, och then," said he, "by the poker of St Patrick, but whisk through ye goes one of these leaden playthings, as sure as ye ever spoiled a coat, or cabbaged broad-cloth. Ye have now come out, ye observe, hark ye," said he, "and are art and part in the business; and, if one, or both, of the principals be killed, poor devils," said he, "we are all alike liable to take our trial before the Justiciary Court, hark ye; and, by the powers," said he, "I doubt not but, on proper consideration, that they will allow us to get off

mercifully, on this side of hanging, by a verdict of manslaughter."

Od, I fund mysell immediately in a scrape; but how to get out of it baffled my gumption. It set me all a shivering; yet I thought that, come the warst when it wad, they surely wad not hang the faither of a helpless sma family, that had naething but his needle for their support, if I made a proper affidavy, about having tried to make peace between the youths. So, conscience being a brave supporter, I abode in silence, though not without many queer and qualmish thochts, and a pit-patting of the heart, no unco pleasant in the tholing.

"Blood and wounds!" bawled Maister Thomas Blister, "it would be a disgrace for ever on the honourable profession of physic," egging on puir Maister Willy Magneesy, whose face was as white as double-bleached linen, "to make any apology for such an insult. You not fit to doctor a cat,-you not fit to bleed a calf,-you not fit to poultice a pig, after three years' apprenticeship," said he, " and a winter with Doctor Monro? By the cupping glasses of Pocrates," said he, "and by the pistol of Gallon, but I would have caned him on the spot, if he had just let out half as much to me. Look ye, man," said he, "look ye, man, he is all shaking;" (this was a god's truth,) "he'll turn tail. At him like fire, Willy."

Magneesy, though sadly frightened, looked a thocht brighter; and made a kind o' half stap forrit. "Say that ye'll ask my pardon once more,-and if no," said the puir lad, with a voice broken and trembling, "then we must just shoot one another.'

"Devil a bit," answered the other, "devil a bit. No, sir; you must down on your bare knees and beg ten thousand pardons for calling me out here, in a raw morning; or I'll have a shot at you, whether you will or no."

"Will you stand that ?" said Blister, with eyes like burning coals. “By the living jingo, and the holy poker, Magneesy, if you stand that if you stand that, I say, I stand no longer your second, but leave you to disgrace, and a caning. If he likes to shoot you like a dog, and not as a gentleman, then his will be done."

"No, sir," replied Magneesy, with a quivering voice, which he tried in

vain, puir fellow, to render warlike, (he had never been in the volunteers like me.) "Hand us the pistols then; and let us do or die !"

66

Spoken like a hero, and brother of the lancet as little afraid at the sight of your own blood, as at that of other people;" said Blister. "Hand over the pistols."

It was an awfu' business. Gude save us, such goings on in a christian land! While Mr. Bloatsheet, the young writer, was in the act of doing what he was bid, I again, but to no purpose, endeavoured to slip in a word edgeways. Magneesy was in an awfu' case; if he had been already shot, he could not have looked mair clay and corpse-like; so I took a kind of whispering, while the stramash was drawing to a bloody conclusion, with Maister Harry Molasses, the fourth in the spree, who was standing behind Bloatsheet, with a large mahogany box under his arm, something in shape like that of a licensed packman, ganging about frae house to house, through the country-side, selling toys and trinkets; or niffering plaited ear-rings and sic like, wi' young lasses, for auld silver coins, or cracked tea-spoons.

"Oh!" answered he very composedly, as if it had been a cannister fu' of black rappee, or blackguard, that he had just lifted down from his tapshelf, "it's just Doctor Blister's saws, whittles, and big knives, in case ony of their legs or arms be blawn away, that he may cut them off." Little wad have prevented me sinking down through the ground, had I not remembered, at the preceese moment, that I myself was a soldier, and liable, when the hour of danger threatened, to be called out in marching-order, to the field of battle. But by this time the pistols were handed to the two infatuated young men, Mr Bloatsheet, as fierce as a hussar dragoon, and Magneesy as supple in the knees as if he was all on oiled hinges; so the next consideration was to get weel out of the way, the lookers-on running nearly as great a chance of being shot as the principals, they no being accustomed, like me, for instance, to the use of arms; on which account, I scouged mysell behind a big peartree; baith being to fire when Blister gied the word “ Öff!”

I had hardly jouged into my hidyhole, when" crack-crack" played

the pistols like lightning; and, as soon as I got my hands ta'en from my een, and looked about, wae's me, I saw Magneesy clap his hands to his brow, wheel round like a pierie, or a sheep seized wi' the sturdie, and then play flap down on his braidside, breaking the necks of half a dozen cabbagestocks, three of which were afterwards clean lost, as we couldna pit them all into the pat at ae time. The haill o' us ran forrit, but foremost was Bloatsheet, who, seizing Magneesy by the hand, said, wi' a mournful face, “I hope you forgive me? only say this as long as you have breath; for I am off to Leith harbour in half a minute."

The bluid was rinning over puir Magneesy's een, and drib, dribbling frae the neb o' his nose, so he was truly in a pitiful state; but he said with more strength than I thocht he could have mustered," Yes, yes, fly for your life. I am dying without much pain-fly for your life, for I am a gone man !"

Bloatsheet bounced through the bit kail-yard like a maukin, clamb ower the bit wa, and aff like mad; while Blister was feeling Magneesy's pulse with ane hand, and looking at his doctor's watch which he had in the ither. "Do ye think that the puir lad will live, doctor?" said I till him.

He gave his head a wise shake, and only observed, "I dare say, it will be a hanging business amang us. In what direction do you think, Mansie, we should all take flight?"

But I answered bravely," Flee them that will, I'se flee nane. If I am ta'en prisoner, the town-officers maun take me frae my ain house; but, nevertheless, I trust the visibility of my innocence will be as plain as a pikestaff to the een of the fifteen!"

"What then, Mansie, will we do with poor Magneesy? Give us your advice in need.”

"Let us carry him down to my ain bed," answered I; "I wad not desert a fellow-creature in his dying hour! Help me down wi' him, and then flee the country as fast as you are able !"

We immediately proceeded, and lifted the poor lad, whae had now dwammed away, upon our wife's handbarrow-Blister taking the feet, and me the oxters, whereby I got my waistcoat a' japanned with bluid; so, when we got him laid right, we proceeded to carry him between us down

the closs, just as if he had been a stickit sheep, and in at the back door, which cost us some trouble, being narrow, and the barrow getting jammed in; but, at lang and last, we got him strieked out aboon the blankets, having previously shooken Benjie, and waukened him out of his morning's nap.

A this being accomplished, and got ower, Blister decamped, leaving me my lieving lane, excepting Benjie, wha was next to naebody, in the house with the deeing man. What a frightfu' face he had, all smeared over with bluid and pouther-and I really jaloused, that if he deed in that room, it wad be haunted for ever mair, he being in a manner a murdered man, so that, even should I be acquitted of art and pairt, his ghaist might still come to bother us, making our house a hell upon yearth, and frighting us out of our seven senses. But, in the midst of my dreadful surmeeses, when all was still, so that you might have heard a pin fall, a knock, knock, knock, cam to the door, on which, coming to my senses, I dreaded first that it was the death-chap, and syne that the affair had gotten wind, and that it was the beagles come in search of me; so I kissed little Benjie, wha was sitting on his creepie, blubbering and greeting for his parritch, while a tear stood in my ain ee, as I gaed forrit to lift the sneck, to let the officers, as I thocht, harrie our house, by carrying aff me, its master; but it was, thank heevan, only Tammy Bodkin, coming in whistling to his wark, with some measuring-papers hinging round his neck.

"Ah, Tammy," said I to him, my heart warming at a kent face, and making the laddie, although my bounden servant by a regular indenture of five years, a friend in my need, "come in, my man. I fear ye'll hae to take charge of the business, for some time to come; mind what I tell'd ye about the shaping and the cutting, and no making the guse ower warm, as I doubt I am about to be harled awa to the Tolbooth."

Tammy's heart laup to his mouth. "Ay, maister," he said, yere joking." What should ye have done that ye should be ta'en to sic an ill place ?""

“Ay, Tammy, lad," answered I, "it is but ower true."-" Weel, weel,' quo Tammy-I really thought it a

great deal of the laddie-" weel, weel, they canna prevent me coming to sew beside ye; and, if I can take the measure of customers without, ye can cut the claith within. But what is't for, maister ?"

"Come in here," said I to him, "and believe you ain een, Tammy, my man.'

"Losh me!" cried the puir laddie, glowring at the bluidy face of the man in the bed. "Ay-ay-ay! maister; save us, maister; ay-ayay-you have na clowred his harnpan wi' the goose? Ay, maister, maister! whaten an unyearthly sight!! I doubt they'll hang us a'; you for doing't-and me on suspicion-and Benjie as art and part, puir thing. But I'll rin for a doctor. Will I, maister?"

The thocht had never struck me before, being in a sort of a manner dung stupid; but catching up the word, I said wi' all my pith and birr, “ Rin, rin, Tammy, rin for life and death!"

But Tammy bolted like a nine-yearauld, never looking behint his tail: so, in less than ten minutes, he returned, hauling alang auld Doctor Gripes, wham he had waukened out o' his bed, by the lug and horn, at the very time I was trying to quiet young Benjie, wha was following me up and down the house, as I was pacing to and fro in distraction, girning and whinging for his breakfast.

"Bad business, bad business; bless us, what is this ?" said the auld Doctor, staring at Magneesy's bluidy face through his silver spectacles-“What's the matter?"

The puir patient knew at ance his maister's tongue, and, lifting up ane of his eyes, the other being stiff and barkened down, said in a melancholy voice, "Ay, master, do ye think I'Ïl get better?"

Doctor Gripes, auld man as he was, started back as if he had been a French dancing-master, or had strampit on a het bar of iron. "Tom, Tom, is this you? what, in the name of wonder, has done this?" Then feeling his wrist— "but your pulse is quite good. Have you fallen, boy? Where is the blood coming from?"

"Somewhere about the hairy scaup," answered Magneesy, in their own sort of lingo. "I doubt some arter's cut through!"

The Doctor immediately bade him

lie quiet, and hush, as he was getting a needle and silken thread ready to sew it up; ordering me to get a bason and water ready, to wash the puir lad's physog. I did so as hard as I was able, though I was na sure aboot the bluid just; auld Dr Gripes watching ower my shouther, wi' a lighted penny candle in ae hand, and the needle and thread in the other, to see where the bluid spouted frae. But we were as daft as wise; so he bade me tak my big sheers, and cut out a' the hair on the fore part of the head as bare as my loof; and syne we washed, and better washed; so Magneesy got the ither ee up, when the barkened bluid was loosed, looking, though as pale as a clean shirt, mair frighted than hurt; until it became as plain as pease to us all, first to the Doctor syne to me, and syne to Tammy Bodkin, and last of a to Magneesy himsell, that his skin was na sa much as peeled; so we helped him out of the bed, and blithe was I to see the lad standing on the floor, without a haud, on his ain feet.

I did my best to clean his neckcloth and sark-neck of the bluid, making him look as dacentish as possible, considering circumstances; and lending him, as the Scripture commands, my tartan maud to hide the infirmity of his bluidy breeks and waistcoat; hame gaed he and his maister thegither, me standing at our closs mouth, wishing them a guid morning, and blithe to see their backs. Indeed, a

condemned thief with the rope about his neck, and the white cowl tied ower his een, to say naething of his hands jerked thegither behind his back, and on the nick of being thrown ower, couldna have been mair thankfu for a reprieve than I was, at that same blessed moment. It was like Adam seeing the deil's rear marching out o' Paradise, if ane may be allowed to think sic a thing.

The haill business, tag, rag, and bob-tail, soon, however, spunkit out, and was the town talk for mair than ae day. But ye'll hear.

At the first I pitied the puir lads, that I thocht had fled for ever and aye from their native country, to Bengal, Seringapatam, Botany Bay, or Jamaica; leaving behint them all their friends and auld Scotland, as they might never hear o' the gudeness of Providence in their behalf. Butwait a wee.

Wad ye believe it? As sure's death, the haill was but a wicked trick played by that mischievous loon Blister and his cronies, upon ane that was a simple and saft-headed callant. Deil a haet was in the ae pistol but a pluff o' pouther; and, in the ither, a cartridge paper fu' o' bull's blood was rammed down upon the charge, the which, hitting Magneesy on the eebree, had caused a business, that seemed to have putten him out o' life, and nearly pat me (though ane of the volunteers) out of my seven senses.

WHEN four young maidens, all beautiful as angels, come floating in, wreathed arm in arm, beneath the high-arched door of a drawing-room, where you are sitting on an Ottoman in romantic reverie, how starts the dreamer to his feet at the instantaneous Apparition! The effect, at first, is as of a single overpowering countenance-a combination of the four into one-the magic of a mysterious Monad. Eyes, noses, cheeks, lips breathe love and delight, smiles and kisses—

*

even as if the garland were but one flower, the galaxy but one star. It is but one fair cloud illuminated by the sunlight a holy glee of four voices, but one harmony! Christopher North supports himself on his crutch, and bends down before the undistinguishable glory. His senses, his imagination, his reason are bewildered-all is bright dazzling confusion before the old man's eyes-and you may count the very beatings of his heart. As the divine rustling of silks and satins ap