The other servants quaked for they knew not well what. Cuddie alone, with the look of supreme indifference and stupidity which a Scotch peasant can at times assume as a masque for considerable shrewdness and craft, continued to swallow large spoonfuls of his broth, to command which, he had drawn within his sphere the large vessel that contained it, and helped himself, amid the confusion, to a sevenfold portion.

"What is your pleasure here, gentlemen?' said Milnwood, humbling himself before the satellites of power.

"We come in behalf of the king,' answered Bothwell. Why the devil did you keep us so long standing at the door?' "We were at dinner,' answered Milnwood, and the door was locked, as is usual in landward towns in this country. I am sure, gentlemen, if I had kenn'd ony servants of our gude king had stood at the door-But wad ye please to drink some ale -or some brandy-or a cup of canary sack, or claret wine?' making a pause between each offer as long as a stingy bidder at an auction, who is loth to advance his offer for a favourite lot. Claret for me,' said one fellow.

"I like ale better,' said another, provided it is right juice of John Barleycorn.'

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"Better never was malted,' said Milnwood; I can hardly say sae muckle for the claret. It's thin and cauld, gentlemen.' Brandy will cure that,' said a third fellow; a glass of brandy to three glasses of wine prevents the curmurring in the stomach.'

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"Brandy, ale, wine, sack, and claret,-we'll try them all,' said Bothwell, and stick to that which is best. There's good sense in that, if the damn'dest Whig in Scotland had said it." " —Pp. 176, 177.

The military intruder proceeds with much insolence to enforce the King's health, which was one of the various indirect modes they had of ascertaining the political principles of those they conversed

with.

"Well,' said Bothwell, have ye all drunk the toast? What is that old wife about? Give her a glass of brandy, she shall drink the king's health, by

"If your honour pleases,' said Cuddie, with great stolidity

of aspect, this is my mither, sir; and she's as deaf as Corralinn; we canna make her hear day nor door; but if your honour pleases, I am ready to drink the king's health for her in as mony glasses of brandy as ye think neshessary.'

"I dare swear you are,' answered Bothwell, you look like a fellow that would stick to brandy-help thyself, man; all's free where'er I come.-Tom, help the maid to a comfortable cup, though she's but a dirty jilt neither. Fill round once moreHere's to our noble commander, Colonel Grahame of Claverhouse! -What the devil is the old woman groaning for? She looks as

very a Whig as ever sate on a hill-side-Do you renounce the Covenant, good woman?'

"Whilk Covenant is your honour meaning? Is it the Covenant of Works, or the Covenant of Grace?' said Cuddie, interposing.

66 6 Any covenant; all covenants that ever were hatched,' answered the trooper.

“Mither,' cried Cuddie, affecting to speak as to a deaf person, the gentleman wants to ken if ye will renounce the Covenant of Works?'

"With all my heart, Cuddie,' said Mause, 'and pray that my feet may be delivered from the snare thereof.'

"Come,' said Bothwell, the old dame has come more frankly off than I expected. Another cup round, and then we'll proceed to business. You have all heard, I suppose, of the horrid and barbarous murder committed upon the person of the Archbishop of St Andrews, by ten or eleven armed fanatics?'"-Vol. ii. pp. 180, 181.

This question enforced and persisted in, at length produces the discovery, that Morton had privately received Balfour, one of the assassins, into the house of his uncle on the preceding evening. Still, although Bothwell prepares to take him into custody, it appears that the high-born sergeant is not unwilling to overlook this deceit, if the inhabitants of the family will take the test-oath, and if his uncle will pay a fine of twenty pounds, for the use of the party.

"Old Milnwood cast a rueful look upon his adviser, and moved off, like a piece of Dutch clock-work, to set at liberty his imprisoned angels in this dire emergency. Mean while, Sergeant Bothwell began to put the test- oath with such a degree of solemn reverence as might have been expected, being just about the same which is used to this day in his Majesty's Custom-house.

"You-what's your name, woman?'

"Alison Wilson, sir.'

"You, Alison Wilson, solemnly swear, certify, and declare, that you judge it unlawful for subjects under pretext of reformation, or any other pretext whatsoever, to enter into Leagues and Covenants

"Here the ceremony was interrupted by a strife between Cuddie and his mother, which, long conducted in whispers, now

became audible.

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O, whisht, mither, whisht! they're upon a communingOh! whisht, and they'll agree weel e'enow.'

"I will not whisht, Cuddie,' replied his mother, 'I will uplift my voice and spare not-I will confound the man of sin, even the scarlet man, and through my voice shall Mr Henry be freed from the net of the fowler.'

"She has her leg ower the harrows now,' said Cuddie, 'stop her wha can-I see her cocked up behint a dragoon on her way to the Tolbooth-I find my ain legs tied below a horse's bellyAy-she has just mustered up her sermon, and there-wi' that grane out it comes, and we are a' ruined, horse and foot!'

"And div ye think to come here,' said Mause, her withered hand shaking in concert with her keen, though wrinkled visage, animated by zealous wrath, and emancipated by the very mention of the test, from the restraints of her own prudence and Cuddie's admonition, div ye think to come here, wi' your soul-killing, saint-seducing, conscience- confounding oaths, and tests, and bands -your snares and your traps, and your gins?-Surely it is in vain that a net is spread in the sight of any bird.'

"Eh! what, good dame?' said the soldier. Here's a Whig miracle, egad! the old wife has got both her ears and tongue, and we are like to be driven deaf in our turn. Go to, hold your peace, and remember whom you talk to, you old idiot.'

"Whae do I talk to? Eh, sirs, ower weel may the sorrowing land ken what ye are. Malignant adherents ye are to the prelates, foul props to a feeble and filthy cause, bloody beasts of prey, and burdens to the earth.'

66 6 Upon my soul,' said Bothwell, astonished as a mastiff-dog might be should a hen partridge fly at him in defence of her young, this is the finest language I ever heard! Can't you give us some more of it?'

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"Gie ye some mair o't?' said Mause, clearing her voice with a preliminary cough, I will take up my testimony against you ance again.-Philistines ye are, and Edomites-leopards are ye, and foxes-evening-wolves, that gnaw not the bones till the morrow-wicked dogs, that compass about the chosen-thrusting kine, and pushing bulls of Bashan-piercing serpents ye are, and allied baith in name and nature with the great Red Dragon. Revelations, twalfth chapter, third and fourth verses.'

"Here the old lady stopped, apparently much more from lack of breath than of matter.

"Curse the old hag,' said one of the dragoons, gag her, and take her to headquarters."

"For shame, Andrews,' said Bothwell; remember the good lady belongs to the fair sex, and uses only the privileges of her tongue. But, hark ye, good woman, every Bull of Bashan and Red Dragon will not be so civil as I am, or be contented to leave you to the charge of the constable and ducking-stool. In the mean time, I must necessarily carry off this young man to headquarters. I cannot answer to my commanding-officer to leave him in a house where I have heard so much treason and fanaticism.

"See now, mither, what ye hae dune,' whispered Cuddie; 'there's the Philistines, as ye ca' them, are gaun to whirry awa' Mr Harry, and a' wi' your nash-gab, de'il be on't!'

"Haud ye're tongue, ye cowardly loon,' said the mother, 'and layna the wyte on me; if you and thae thowless gluttons that are sitting staring like cows bursting on clover, wad testify wi' your hands as I have testified wi' my tongue, they should never harle the precious young lad awa' to captivity.' ."-Vol. ii. pp.190

195.

This testimony of Mause having fairly broken up the secret treaty between the sergeant and old Milnwood, the former, nevertheless, without regard to good faith, does not hesitate to appropriate the subsidy of twenty pounds, on which he had already laid his clutches; and sets off with his party and

his prisoner to the castle of Tillietudlem, where he is detained all night by the hospitality of Lady Margaret Bellenden, who conceives she cannot pay too much attention to the soldiers of his most sacred majesty, commanded by a man of such distinguished birth as Bothwell. The scene which we have transcribed seems to have been sketched with considerable attention to the manners. But it is not quite original, and probably the reader will discover the germ of it in the following dialogue, which Daniel Defoe has introduced into his History of the Church of Scotland. It will be remembered that Defoe visited Scotland on a political mission about the time of the Union, and it is evident that the anecdotes concerning this unhappy period, then fresh in the memory of many, must have been peculiarly interesting to a man of his liveliness of imagination, who excelled all others in dramatizing a story, and presenting it as if in actual speech and action before the reader.

"They tell us another story of a soldier, not so divested of humanity as most of them were, and who meeting a man upon the road, who he suspcted was one of the poor outlawed proscribed people, as indeed he was; the man was surprised, and would have got from him, but he saw it was in vain, and yet the soldier soon let him know that he was not very much inclined to hurt him, much less to kill him: whereupon the following dialogue, as it is said, happened between them.

"The soldier seeing the countryman willing to shun, and get from him, begins thus :

"Soldier. Hold, sir, ye mon no gang frae me, I have muckle business at you.

"C. Man. Well, what's your will then?

"Soldier. I fear ye are one of the Bothwell-Brigg-men: what say ye to that?

"C.Man. Indeed no, sir, I am not.