"I see ye're nae great hand at the whisky, sir," said the hostess, in answer to an equivocal shake of the head with which an Englishman generally salutes the indigenous flavour of genuine peat-reek; "but tak my word for't, ae devil dings out anither, and if ye're to be dancin and daffin yonder, and the room reeking o' punch like a killogie, ye'll ken a' the less for being a thought primed yoursel; and ye'll dance a' the better for't, I'se warrant" turning with a smile to G, "a spur in the head's worth twa in the heel." So saying, the good lady, desirous to profit in her domestic affairs by the interval between the claims of her very opposite customers, snatched up the candle, and marshalled us to the scene of a festivity to which, at the distance of a mile at least, our ears might have proved sufficient guides. The hoarse squeak of the wary and muggy fiddlers was now well-nigh drowned by the far more efficient "lilt" of some stentorian voices, on whose organs the "barley bree" had produced an exactly opposite effect; and the figure of one round rosy shepherd, who, with bonnet "ajee" and picturesquely disposed plaid, sung, danced, and snapped his fingers, surrounded by a ring of admiring rivals, would have been worthy the pencil of a Teniers or a Wilkie. His partner in the reel was no less a personage than the blushing bride- a weatherbeaten crone of some sixty winters' bronzing; and as, exhilarated by the unwonted stimulant of applause, she strove to keep pace with the agile movements and giddy whirlings of her vis-a-vis, peals of unbridled laughter shook the quiet hostelry to its very base. The bridegroom again, an old Chelsea pensioner, whose once steady, soldier-like frame retained some shadow of military bearing, spite of the joint inroads of palsy and potations, was doing his best to keep his equilibrium, as, like "Panting Time," he toiled after the winged heels of a mountain fairy of sixteen, whose shy but earnest gaze at the strangers, and bounding rapidity of motion, reminded me at once of the roe on her native hills. Moved by compassion for this ill-matched couple, and well aware of the popular course on such occasions, G- dashed at once into the old man's place in the dance, and began threading its mazes with the blushing, but evidently flattered damsel, making me a sign to follow his example-a hint which neither my proficiency in the national dance, nor the charms of the bride, were sufficient to warrant my taking. I slid down unobserved beside some of the few elders present, whose shrewd remarks and good-natured participations in the "daffin" of the youngsters were not the least pleasing part of the motley scene. I had never before seen a body of Lowland peasantry collected in holiday attire, and certainly their general good looks, neat shoes and stockings, and above all, the prevalence of decidedly dark hair and complexion (among the men especially), gave the lie to many a Southern quip, at the expense of the bare-footed daughters and carroty-headed sons of Scotia. The dance by this time-thanks to the punch, which had been freely circulating-was getting, as Burns says, "fast and furious." Gleams of broad national humour flashed through the habitual gravity of the demurest blue-bonneted peasant of the group; and for a while there was abundance to excite both the Scottish feelings and constitutional gaiety of the young painter, and the natural curiosity of an English stranger. But giddy at length with the endless reels, deafened with the mirthful accompanying shrieks, half-stifled with heat and the fumes of the national beverage, we both felt it high time to breathe a purer air, and were in the act of quietly withdrawing (after laying on the pewter plate appropriated for the offering our mite towards the hopeful infant menage), when we ran against our hostess, arriving for the special purpose-a very unwonted one in her vocation-of turning us out of doors. "I was just coming, sirs, to gie ye a bit word o' counsel. I'm sure ye'll no take it ill at my hand; but it's time the like o' you were flitting, for the maut's getting abune the meal yonder, and they tine respect whiles, and it's no wiselike to be late in a minister's house on Saturday night at e'en. Mr. G kens that." "No, indeed—you're quite right,” answered the painter, "and indeed we were going away fully satisfied when we met you.' Aweel, gang your ways like gude gentlemen, and I'll gie yon daft chiels their supper, and hae them a' out o' my house by the clap o' eleven. There sall naebody say they saw a Sabbath morning within't, tho' I wadna wonder if some o' the ill-doers were aff to the hill or some gait out o' hearing to make a night o't. There's some folk canna hae their sairing either o' daffin or drink, the mair's the pity! Hech! but ye'll be weel aff that's quiet down by!" "I'll call and settle the reckoning another time, Mrs. Cairns," said my friend. "Ay, ay," answered she, more chary of her time than her money, "ony day when ye're daunering out amang the hills. Ye're awin me a day in hairst, ye ken, for this!" Never was the pure healthful mountain breeze more welcome than when it swept across our flushed and feverish brows on emerging from the steaming cauldron within, or the silence of night more grateful than after the din of plebeian revelry in its most discordant form. But there reigned within the little parsonage an atmosphere holier and more healthful still. A more powerful contrast, a stranger juxtaposition of the lights and shadows of Scottish life could scarcely be conceived than presented itself between the orgies, and sounds and scents, and coarsely heaped banquet we had left behind, and the hallowed stillness, untainted (nay, from the open lattice, perfumed) air of the minister's modest apartment, and the inviting aspect of the little supper table, on whose snowwhite linen yet reposed the bibles and psalters recently used in the household's evening devotions. In these we had been (perhaps from G's sense of incongruity in thus intruding) too late to partake, but the spirit which had animated and hallowed them still lingered on the venerable minister's brow, the flush of devotion on whose aged cheek rebuked more strongly than a thousand homilies the feverish glow of revelry on ours, compared or rather contrasted with the "rable rout" of reeling, romping nymphs we had left (the elite, it must be remembered, even of peasant maidens, were absent, of course, from such a scene). The slender, retiring figure of the good pastor's blooming grand-daughter seemed robed in almost angel purity; and all, in short, derived romance, as well as interest, from the utmost power of contrast. But there was that about our host which needed no such heightening. Even amid the sacred class of Scottish pastors he rose preeminent-pre-eminent in trials, and in the submission which disarms them. Of a large and flourishing family, one daughter alone, the mother of the girl before us, survived; and she, separated from her gray-headed father by the waters of the great Atlantic, could only cherish him by proxy in the person of this interesting child. "Not a willing one, sir, I am sure; but my studies in England and Italy, and professional duty, not only occupied me, but kept me ignorant, till now, of the sad blanks it has pleased Providence to make on your hospitable board. Had I been aware of them I would not have intruded now to renew, by: my presence, those griefs which I could not alleviate." "And wherefore no, Willie?" said the old man, in a tone that went at once even to a stranger's heart; "my brave boys are gone before me, it is true, leaving their old father to buffet a while with the billows. But praised be He who lent them! they were such as a father can speak of with pride; and to do so with one who knew and loved them is a privilege rarely enjoyed. This gentleman, perhaps,” turning courteously toward me, "will excuse the overflowings of a parent's heart at sight of one whose fair delicate brow he has often blessed along with the dark curling heads he has lived to see laid in the dust. Tall and pale, and unlikely to live, ye were then, Willie; but ye have proved the reed that the tempest spares when oaks are rended. But we'll talk of our Lilly now," said the old man, cheerfully, shaking the fair hand of his grandchild as she stooped to collect the sacred volumes. "I think her mother must have been about her age when you knew the manse; saw ye ever two creatures liker?" The entrance of a worthy old sister of our host's, who, on hospitable thoughts intent, had disappeared on our entrance, turned the conversation to more general topics-among other to the penny-wedding. "I am glad," said Mr. Maxwell, "I was spared the degradation of my office by the residence of one at least of the hopeful pair in a neighbouring parish; and I wish the idle frolic which united them had been carried on further from my door. I am no enemy to occasional rejoicings, and love to see innocent mirth; but the sport these poor wretches have been called to make will end, I fear, like that of Samson, and bring an old house upon their heads. "However, sir," turning to me, "that you may not suppose all our junketings are of so boisterous and equivocal a character, I hope you will stay over Monday, and help me to thank my kind people for insisting on keeping my fiftieth anniversary among them. I am sure, Willie, I may count upon you, for auldlangsyne." "Ay, that you may, sir, come what will of palette and pupils," exclaimed the young artist: and my acceptance, if less enthusiastic, was not the less cordial. To see, in the midst of a grateful and affectionate flock, the faithful pastor of half a century, is a sight not often to be enjoyed, or lightly to be forfeited; and I too would have perilled fame or business, had they been mine, on the issue. A Scottish Sabbath has been often described, but never, methinks, so as fully to convey to a stranger its exquisite stillness, and the palpable elevation of all in nature above the diurnal level of our "working-day world." It is not alone the absence of all sounds of labour or revelry, the softened tread of the rude hind, the subdued laughter of unconscious infancy, but the very whisper of the brooks and waving of the woods seem attuned to soberer and holier harmonies. The busy highway and toilsome furrow are alike deserted, while a thousand quiet hedge-row paths teem and glitter with long files of holiday-suited elders, and white-robed youth and childhood. If airs of paradise do indeed ever penetrate our world's dense atmosphere, and breathe sweet influences from on high on privileged mortals, it is surely on a summer Sabbath amid the green hills and pastoral vales of Scotland. The little church of Boneil, primitive as though, instead of being near a metropolis, it had been perched on some lone isle of the Hebrides, was filled to excess on the present interesting occasion with a congregation as perfectly in keeping with the scene and situation as it was novel and striking to me. | tute for the poetical "snood," wanted only the figure of the venerable minister himself, rising like some fitly adapted pillar of a time-worn edifice to crown and complete its harmony. When he did rise, at length, manfully struggling for utterance, breaths were held in, and the very dogs recalled their dreaming fancies from the dun hill-side, lest a start or suppressed bark should disturb the solemn silence. The beautiful twenty-third Psalm, always so great a favourite in a pastoral assembly, came more home to their feelings than ever when its "green pastures and still waters" were applied, as they evidently were by the venerable reader, to his own tranquil sojourn of a lifetime in the glen of Boneil. The allusion to a darker valley, the inevitable and not very distant termination of a lengthened pilgrimage, woke a yet tenderer chord; and when these words were sung, as the psalmody of Scotland so im pressively is, by young and old, it was not the voice of the gray-haired contemporary parishclerk alone that betrayed signs of emotion. The text was the simple words of the psalmist-"I have been young, and now am old;" and perhaps its most affecting commentary might have been found in the time-worn figure in the pulpit, whose manly proportions age and grief had sapped without being able to obliterate. But when the good man sketched with faltering voice an unpremeditated picture of that gradual pilgrimage from youth to age, every step of which many of his hearers had taken side by side with this tried veteran in the path of duty and affliction; when the young heard him allude with a parent's tenderness to follies they felt years could alone teach them entirely to abjure; and the old saw his venerable face lighted up with joys he had taught many, like himself, to draw from above; tears, fast and frequent, as from dropping eaves, attested the sympathy that reigned between the good shepherd and his flock. There was not a face in the assembly-a sprinkling of rustic noblesse in the gallery hardly excepted-which could have been assigned by a physiognomist to any vocation save a rural one. "In the sweat of thy brow thou shalt eat bread" was legible on the toilfurrowed cheek of all who had reached maturity. But it was a graciously mitigated sentence, long merged in the cheerfulness of man's congenial occupation. "Keepers of sheep, descendants in more than their calling from righteous Abel," formed the larger part "My brethren," said he, in a conclusion of the aged pastor's flock; and their blue accelerated evidently by overpowering emotion bonnets, chequered plaids, and above all, in- on both sides, "forty years long did the Israelseparable comrades, even in church, the collies ites in the wilderness tempt and provoke Moses, or sheep-dogs, looking almost as sensible as rebelling against his authority, calling in questheir masters, and banishing by their exem- tion his kindness, and disobeying, nay, blasplary demeanour all idea of intrusion on the pheming his God, yet in his heart he loved sanctity of the place, afforded a picture not and prayed for them still, beseeching that, if often exhibited to Southern or even Lowland need were, his own name might for their sakes eyes; and which, with scarlet plaids, still be blotted out of the Book of Life. Fifty years thinly sprinkled here and here, over locks of long have you, amid much human imperfection silvery whiteness, and on one or two fair un- and human infirmity, cherished and borne with bonneted female heads in innocent girlhood, me-cleaving to my doctrine, following, as their golden tresses confined and set off by a God gave ye grace, my counsel, and sympasimple black velvet ribbon, the modern substi-thizing, to the utmost of your ability, in my welfare and my sorrows-judge then if my love to a people like this surpass not the love of woman-yea, all save that love which shall embrace us both in its everlasting arms. May we all meet at the judgment-seat above: I, to render an account of my ministry-you, to reecho, if it shall please the merciful Judge to pronounce it, the lenient sentence-Thou hast been faithful over a very little, enter into the joy of thy Lord."" The effect of this appeal may be better imagined than expressed. G- and I did not breathe freely till, by climbing the highest hill within reach, we had attuned our minds to an elevation somewhat akin to that of the half emancipated pilgrim. The evening calm, which succeeded the converse of the pastor about his absent (rather than deceased) children, the family thanksgiving for blessings granted and withheld, for comforts to cheer, and trials to wean the immortal sojourner from his exile below, will never, while memory holds her seat, pass from her inmost record. I awoke on the morrow, fancying all nature decked in tenfold beauty for the joyful anniversary, my own spirits elated with a healthful gladness which courtly fetes may take away, but could never yet bestow. The privileged guests for the day (G— and myself included) were the elders, most of whose fathers had presided at the minister's ordination-the schoolmaster, who, in the absence of nearer and dearer, had long been to him as a son; and the doctor, who, under a dress and exterior rugged as those of his shepherd neighbours, veiled a skill beyond their simple wants and few-and-far-between ailments. But a self-invited member was soon added to the group in the person of a young neighbour laird, who made sport an excuse (with those who required any) for farming his own moderate patrimony, and enjoying, unfettered by the etiquettes of society, so called, the style of life most congenial to his age and disposition. At the breakfast-table young Boneil-for so from his property he was styled-walked in, with his heartfelt congratulations, and a bag full of grouse, shot before town dandies had well composed themselves to their first sleep. "Any other day of the year, Mr. Maxwell," said the frank young sportsman, "I would have dropped in at dinner, and taken my chance of a welcome. But this is a sacred one, and I would like to have my intrusion sanctioned beforehand. If you think me worthy (and if you don't, you'll say so, in spite of all your hospitality) to rejoice with you on your fifty years' retrospect of duties fulfilled and good deeds done, remember, you'll find it a hard matter ever to shut the door on me or my pretensions again." "God forbid I should, Norman," said the old man, shaking his manly visitor by the hand; "a kind heart and a leal one are aye welcome. Fifty years back your father bore both, and his son is no changeling. Stay with us now, or return, as it best suits you. "Oh! I dare not stay!" cried the young man, with a significant smile at Lilly and her aunt; "I should be sadly in the way. Besides, I spied a roe in the glen this morning, and must have another hit at the venison. What say you to a pasty, Miss Anne, between this and noon yet?" "I'll say for her, Norman, that it will be like the savoury meat of Esau that old Isaac valued for the hunter's sake, if ye get it; and if not, we've the will for the deed, and that's just the same. And now off with ye, else your pies in the bush will stand in the way of Aunt Anne's puddings in hand." "There goes as fine a lad as ever lived," said the pastor, as he went out. "If he were my own son, I could scarce love him better." I looked up, and chanced to meet the delighted glance of the retreating Lilly; and it told me, as plain as a thousand words, that the old man might, ere long, take to his heart a grandson!" Another testimony of grateful affection followed hard on the sportsman's morning tribute. A parcel and letter were put into the hands of the minister from the worthy nobleman whose exemplary tutor he had been at an age when few are able to guide themselves. The letter overflowed with expressions of still youthful kindliness and gratitude. The parcel contained a snuff-mull of beautiful workmanship, inlaid with all the valuable Scottish stones produced on the noble donor's estates. "If I have any good in me," said the writer, in honest sincerity of acknowledgment, "you dug it out from its native bed like these longoverlooked gems, which but for the hand which set them where they are might have been still trodden under foot or slumbering in their dark hill-sides for ever. When you look on this box, think on your own workmanship, and add one more to the thousand pleasing reflections which make this day a day of pride to all, save your own modest self." It was not in man to be unmoved by a tribute like this, and from the Duke of - the very model and pattern of a pious and patriotic noble. "Too much, too much!" sighed the meek man, as he read, "God made him what he is; education can do little for hearts and heads like his." The Lilly was called, and her eyes sparkled through tears as they glanced on the splendid present and ducal epistle; but they did not glisten, nor her soft cheek glow, as while conning every feather on the dark glossy wing of young Norman's sylvan tribute. Lilly, too, had her present on the way-one to whose safety, in her eyes, that of empires was as nothing: and never was the delay occasioned by traiking Tibbie's late tumultuous nuptials more acutely felt than when noon arrived, bringing duly Norman's precarious prize, the roe, but no tidings of the fair fabric of Lilly's after-dinner glory-videlicet, a huge cake from the city, which was first to grace with appropriate devices her grandfather's honoured board, and then to gladden, with undreamed-of sweets, the eyes and palates of the whole Sabbath-school. The sight of the groups who in holiday attire were already parading in joyful anticipation, deepened her anxieties; and the joy of eighteen, like the joy of eighty, had thus its inevitable drop of alloy. The manse, meantime, teemed all the morning with unbidden yet privileged guests. Neighbouring pastors came to congratulate the willing fellow-labourer, under whose fatherly shadow themselves had grown insensibly gray-with whom they had "taken sweet counsel and walked in the house of God as friends"-and with whom they hoped, though in all humility, to stand side by side at the great account. Couples married by him in the earlier periods of his incumbency still lived to thank him for half centuries of happiness; while children and grandchildren, christened by his hand, and made Christian by his precept and example, came with them to add their grateful acknowledgments. Widows, whose hearts had been bound up by one acquainted with grief, brought all they had—a prayer and a blessing, to swell the general tribute; while the Sabbath-school children tottered under the load of a pulpit Bible, purchased out of the hoarded halfpence of the good man's own overflowing liberality. With this juvenile offering he was fairly upset; and always easily overcome by aught associated with his own childless hearth and earlyremoved olive-plants, he thanked them with tears alone, and deputed the glad Lilly to invite them all to tea on the green. This she could do with an easy mind, for Tibbie had at length arrived; the enormous weight of the cake balanced, though imperfectly, in her panniers, by | two of the hugest ewe-milk cheeses that ever owed their existence to mountain gratitude. The Our party, swelled by a few guests of the better order, at length sat down to dinner; and never did feast (for a feast it was, fit for the court of aldermen) yield more unmingled satisfaction. The old man, exhilarated by the spontaneous burst of affection with which his anniversary had been hailed, felt a buoyancy of spirit to which he had for years been a stranger. G and I were excited to the utmost by so unwonted a celebration. dominie himself, through the week the "observed of all observers," looked up in delighted admiration to his own exemplary teacher; while the rough diamond of a doctor eyed him with the exact counterpart of the expression with which his dog, of the true shepherd breed, fixed his eyes in mute devotion on his master's well-known countenance. All felt, that like the good centurion in Scripture, he had but to say to any of them, "Do this, and he doeth it; come, and he cometh." Their hearts, under Providence, were in his hand, and they felt it was well it should be so. But there was in young Norman's reverential gaze something deeper and more filial than any, and strange to say, on this day alone, when all seemed elated and emboldened, it was tempered for the first time with fear. For Norman had a suit to prefer before that evening should close, on which hung his own and another's happiness; and not all the softened feelings of the day of jubilee would, he feared, reconcile the old pastor to the thought of parting with his Lilly. How this was to be brought about, or even hinted at, was more than even a lover could devise; so to Providence he left it, as he had been taught by his pastor to leave all besides. And strangely was the knot cut, and the difficulty removed ere the thought had well passed from the young man's troubled mind. Among the healths of that eventful evening"absent friends"—the one ever dearest to the hearts of Scotsmen, was not forgotten; and then for the first time did the pious father allow himself to whisper a regret that his daughter, the only stay of his old age, should dwell divided from him by duty in the new world. True, she was solacing by her kindness, and cheering by her society, the labours in Christian usefulness of a worthy countryman whom the spiritual necessities of his exiled Scottish brethren had induced to forego home and kindred for their sakes. But they had been long, long absent on this labour of love, and a father's heart would yearn, on the proudest day of his life, for a glimpse of his long-banished only child |