by females, whose shameful trade was evident by their want of the customary hood, denied to them by statute. This place, existing from time immemorial in the holy ground of the Cité, was called the Val d'Amour; and the inhabitants formed a female confrèrie with St. Magdalen for patroness, whose fête they celebrated with religious festivities. But not only was the Venus Vaga thus converted to Christianity, but the repentant members of the sisterhood were received as nuns under the name of the Filles Dieu; and the knight had seen distributed, during the procession, at the door of their convent in the Rue St. Denis, a silver goblet-full of wine to all who passed by and chose to drink.

As the evening closed in, the tumult of the streets began to die away; and the noise of the waters of the Seine, as they boiled and whirled among the wheels of the Pont-auxMeuniers, rose above the lessened din, and seemed

Imposing silence with a stilly sound.

Even without inquiring, the stranger easily found his way to the bridge which led to the University, by the crowd of black figures bending thither, from all quarters, their sometimes unsteady steps.

When at length he had reached the left bank of the river, he found himself in altogether another town, differing from the one he had left in every characteristic, both moral and physical. Few shops, few merchants, few tradesmen were to be seen-few even of the omni-coloured nondescripts who belong, one knows not how, to a city. But instead, there was a population of black figures, black cloaks, black cowls, and a mass of black houses, more resembling public buildings than private dwellings. Yet, on nearer inspection, the same inequalities were observable which are seen in every large collection of human habitations. Some of the houses were old, some new, some mean, some majestic: and their occupiers, in the same way, exhibited in the outward man, all the varieties of sublunary fortune.

The knight, in inquiring his way, addressed himself like a prudent stranger to the more respectable class of the passers-by-to those whose substantial-looking tabards, worn over their college dress, showed that they were at least graduates of the university; but after some time he found himself involved in a labyrinth of mean and narrow streets, where the appearance and manners of the inhabitants were but little calculated to inspire confidence. Groups of students rolled along, quarrelling and fighting as they went; screams mingled with laughter were heard from every

opening; and the clash of weapons, often more sonorous than cudgels, made the stranger at last bethink himself, whether he had not made some odd mistake-whether he was in reality traversing the Jerusalem of science, the holy city of priests and scholars?

While hesitating for a moment as this idea occurred to him, he was suddenly and violently pushed by a party of students, who appeared to have been skulking behind him; and the Scot, notwithstanding his good humour, instantly collared the nearest offender. This, of course, produced a row, which seemed to be all that the black gowns wanted; and in an instant, three or four cudgels were whistling about his head at the same time. Still he did not draw his sword, for the weapon in its sheath was hard and heavy enough almost to make up for the odds against him; while the hauberk beneath his coat of arms defended his body from serious injury. In other respects, however, he was not more than upon a par with the enemy. His coat was merely an ornamental garment, emblazoned with the arms of his family; his immense spurs, made in the fashion of the age, as large as a man's hand, somewhat impeded his pedestrian motions; and on his head he wore only the common pointed cap of the time, protected from spirits rather than men by a sprig of the holy rowan-tree, or mountain-ash.

But his forbearance, attributed in all probability to a dread of the University-which learned body would have hung, without mercy, a more distinguished man for shedding the blood of a scholar in any quarrel-only increased the violence of his assailants. While wondering whether this was anything more than an ebullition of the blackguardism of the most turbulent youth in Europe, his doubts were at once dissipated by an exclamation which mingled with the shouts and yells accompanying the attack.

"Down with the false Scot!" cried one of the students; and the young knight, perceiving at once that he was in danger of assassination, stood no longer upon ceremony, but drew his sword. His enemies were, no doubt, some of the English who had been permitted, out of respect to the University, to remain at their colleges; and such were the feelings which existed at that time between the two nations, that the energies of the Scot were now still more roused by national hate than by the instinct of self-preservation.

His new position, however, was only calculated to accelerate his fate; for at the same time three of the students threw down their cudgels, and drew a short two-edged sword, concealed under their gowns; and which, strange as

it may seem under such circumstances, they had probably been prevented from using before, by certain feelings of honour. At the sight of this weapon, forbidden to their order, our adventurer perceived that the case was now become very serious indeed; and having an excessive repugnance to the idea of being thus put to death in a corner, he began to shout lustily for help, and at the same time to help himself with redoubled energy.

"Shame upon you, ye pock-puddings!" cried a voice at this juncture, from a window above their head, "to fall like a pack of hounds upon a single man! Who is it ye are slaughtering now? One of yourselves, I trust," for by this time the daylight was almost entirely gone, and the speaker, who had been attracted to the window by the shouts, could not at first distinguish colours.

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"It is a knight, ye false loons!" continued he, in a tone of greater interest, as he bent out of the window, a belted knight! and, holy saints! a Scot-and his cognizance-O Christ!" At these words the speaker suddenly disappeared from the window, but the next moment his voice was heard sounding like distant thunder through the house.

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Bauldy, Nigel, Andrew," shouted he, clubs, ye villains! hurry for your lives! What ho, to the rescue! It is a kindly Scot, and a Douglas to boot-Saint Bride for the Bleeding Heart!" and with this cry he darted out of the doorway, followed by three wild uncouth-looking figures, who rushed in pell-mell among the students, dealing right and left such sudden and tremendous blows, that each individual had floored his man almost before their presence was observed by the belligerents.

The knight, having now more elbow-room, seconded his friends so stoutly that blood began to flow in great abundance; and the tread of a body of horse being heard at the same time in the distance, denoting the approach of the night-guard, the English, if English they were, at length fairly took to flight.

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Not a step!" cried the leader of the rescue, as the knight was about to follow in pursuit, "not a step for your life! And know, messire, that however well off you may think yourself at this blessed moment, that red puddle which you have spilt upon the street, may yet cost you your neck! But come, these English cut-throats, it must be allowed, have some indistinct notions of propriety after all; they will give and take whole skinfuls of broken bones over night, but are not the lads, like some other nations I wot of, to go groaning and blubbering to the rector in the morning."

"And yet," said the knight, "notwithstanding the boasted virtues of the English, I am happy that I owe life and limb to my own countrymen."

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Spoken like a true Scot!" cried the rescuer: "but come, there is no wisdom in standing here in the dark till the guard come up; and so, messire, you must just step into the college, and let us have a crack till the jaw go by." The stair was in utter darkness, and so ruinous, that the ascent took some time. In the meanwhile, the conductor continued to be the spokesman of the party.

"Don't be in a hurry," said he, "for in a case like this -I should say a stair-case-haste is not the father of speed. You must know, I am a Douglas myself by the mother's side; and that is the reason why my heart warmed to the cognizance of the house, when I saw it on your coat of arms, But mind the next step-there-hoot!—I should have said the hole where the step was; but I hope you are not much hurt. We collegians, you see, are a thought wild at times, and besides, the stair is older than our day; and Bauldy there, and Nigel, and Andrews, some whiles contrive, God knows by what luck they manage it, to get their mouths to the wine-flask; and then they come triumphing home in a way that no stone and lime can stand. And now we are in the school-room. Cedant arma toga. I always put my stick where it can be found in the dark. Bauldy, my man, will you not have the decency to light the candle? that is, if there be any of it left if not, we can easily rive a piece off this bench and make a fire, which will answer the purpose as well; and when the regent sees the damage in the morning, it is easy laying it upon the rats."

Bauldy, however, after much rummaging found a small dirty bit of tallow candle, and at length succeeded in lighting it. While this operation was going on, the knight who had stood for some time in profound silence suddenly grasped the arm of his rescuer, and demanded in a voice neither very clear nor very steady, "Am I really in what is called the Scottish College? Speak!"

"Take off your fingers from my arm then, my man," replied the scholar; "I can speak without the screws. Truly, are you in the Scottish college; and, although I say so who should be silent, there is not a college like it in the whole University!" At this moment the light gave a sudden flare, and was as instantaneously extinguished by the awkwardness of Bauldy.

"God be gracious to me!" exclaimed the scholar; "What is this? My heart leaps to my mouth; the tears rise into

my eyes; old times, and old places, and old friends, and old by-gone dreams come back, as if conjured by a spell! Speak! Who are you? But need I ask? You are a Douglas; you are "

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David!" cried the knight, opening his arms as the flame of the candle reappeared.

"Archibald !" and the two friends fell on one another's necks; the one struggling with his tears, and the other, less acquainted with the customs of society, weeping aloud.

And you, that I thought were never to have left home!" said David, when they had recovered breath; "more especially after the connexion of your name with France had ceased, or at least had become nothing more than a name, by the death of your chief, Earl Archibald, duke of Touraine! Tell me, friend and comrade of my young days, and cousin five times removed-tell me, Archibald of the Braes, what made you leave your father's fireside?"

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War-woe-want," replied Sir Archibald; "my father is dead in a border foray; my patrimony is eaten up by the creditors; and, as a baillie of the tailors most truly, but most impudently, cast up to me to-day, I have come to France, that I may continue as heretofore to eat of the wheaten bread, and drink of the red wine."

Alas, the day!" ejaculated his friend; "he was a worthy man your father, and my mother's near cousin! It is no wonder I did not know you, for you are a head taller, and your voice is like a drum. But you bleed, Archibald!" "It is nothing.

No more it is and if otherwise, we know nothing here of the art of the leech, which Messire Walter of Metz justly casteth into contempt as having only to do with the perishing body. It has no part in our clergy, formerly termed the trivium and quadrivium, and which consisteth only of the noble arts and sciences of astronomy, music, geometry, logic, natural philosophy and grammar. When these lads are wounded, which happens to them, poor fellows, seven times a week-Set down the candle, Bauldy, and don't hold it at us as if we were world's wonders; and wipe your eyes, and shut your mouth, my man: he is come, Douglas, of gentle kin, and is every inch of him a kindly Scot. And there is Nigel, with a headful of fiery hair like a comet, he is a cousin not far removed of my own; and Andrew at his back, who counts lineage with the Kerrs of Cessford. Away with ye now to bed, sirs. Fye, I heard the bell of the ignitegium, or couvre-feu, an hour ago; and besides I have a long crack to get over with Sir Archibald: for you already know, my