have that scoundrel shut up-O, your old-remembered guest of a beggar becomes as well acquainted with you as he is with his dish-as intimate as one of the beasts familiar to man which signify love, and with which his own trade is especially conversant. Who is he?— why, he has gone the vole-has been soldier, ballad-singer, travelling tinker, and is now a beggar. He is spoiled by our foolish gentry, who laugh at his jokes, and rehearse Edie Ochiltree's good things as regularly as Joe Miller's.»

« He uses freedom apparently, which is the soul of wit.">

« O aye, freedom enough; he generally invents some damned improbable lie or another to provoke you, like that nonsense he talked just now - not that I'll publish my tract till I have examined the thing to the bottom.»

« In England,» said Lovel, « such a mendicant would get a speedy check.>>

Yes, your churchwardens and dog-whips would make slender allowance for his vein of humour. But here, curse him, he is a sort of privileged nuisance- one of the last specimens of the old-fashioned Scottish mendicant, who kept his rounds within a particular district, and was the news-carrier, the minstrel, and sometimes the historian of the parish. That rascal, now, knows more old ballads and traditions than any other man in this and the four next parishes. And after all,» continued he, softening as he went on describing Edie's good gifts, « the dog has some

good-humour. He has borne his hard fate with unbroken spirits, and it's cruel to deny him the comfort of a laugh at his betters. The pleasure of having quizzed me, as you gay folk would call it, will be meat and drink to him for a day or two. But I must go back and look after him, or he will spread his d-d nonsensical story over half the country."

So saying, our heroes parted, Mr Oldbuck to return to his hospitium at Monkbarns, and Lovel to pursue his way to Fairport, where he arrived without further adventure.

CHAPTER V.

Launcelot Gobbo. Mark me now: Now will I raise the waters. Merchant of Venice.

THE theatre at Fairport had opened, but no Mr Lovel appeared upon the boards, nor was there any thing in the habits or deportment of the young gentleman so named, which authorized Mr Oldbuck's conjecture that his fellow-traveller was a candidate for the public favour. Regular were the Antiquary's enquiries at an old-fashioned barber, who dressed the only three wigs in the parish, which, in defiance of taxes and times, were still subjected to the operation of powdering and frizzling, and who for that purpose divided his time among the three employers whom fashion had yet left him left him regular, I say, were Mr Oldbuck's enquiries at this personage concerning the news of the little theatre at Fairport, expecting every day to hear of Mr Lovel's appearance, on which occasion the old gentleman had determined to put himself to charges in honour of his young friend, and not only to, go to the play himself, but to carry his womankind along with him. But old Jacob Caxon conveyed

no information which warranted his taking so decisive a step as that of securing a box.

He brought information, on the contrary, that there was a young man residing at Fairport, of whom the town (by which he meant all the gossips, who, having no business of their own, fill up their leisure moments by attending to that of other people) could make nothing. He sought no society, but rather avoided that, which the apparent gentleness of his manners, and some degree of curiosity, induced many to offer him. Nothing could be more regular, or less resem-. bling an adventurer, than his mode of living, which was simple, but so completely well arranged, that all who had any transactions with him were loud in their approbation.

<< These are not the virtues of a stage-struck hero,» thought Oldbuck to himself; and, however habitually pertinacious in his opinions, he must have been compelled to abandon that which he had formed in the present instance, but for a part of Caxon's communication. << The young gentleman,» he said, « was sometimes heard speaking to himsel, and rampauging about in his room, just as if he was ane o' the player folk.»

Nothing, however, excepting this single circumstance, occurred to confirm Mr Oldbuck's supposition, and it remained a high and doubtful question, what a well-informed young man, without friends, connections, or employment of any kind, could have to do as a resident at

Fairport. Neither port- wine nor whist had apparently any charms for him. He declined dining with the mess of the volunteer cohort, which had been lately embodied, and shunned sharing in the convivialities of either of the two parties which then divided Fairport, as they did more important places. He was too little of an aristocrat to join the club of Royal True Blues, and too little of a democrat to fraternize with an affiliated society of the soi-disant Friends of the People, which the borough had also the happiness of possessing. A coffee-room was his detestation; and, I grieve to say it, he had as few sympathies with the tea-table. In short, since the name was fashionable in novelwriting, and that is a great while agone, there was never a Master Lovel of whom so little positive was known, and who was so universally. described by negatives.

One negative, however, was important-nobody knew any harm of Lovel. Indeed, had such existed, it would have been speedily made public, for the natural desire of speaking evil of our neighbour could in his case have been checked by no feelings of sympathy for a being so unsocial. Upon one account alone he fell somewhat under suspicion. As he made free use of his pencil in his solitary walks, and had drawn several views of the harbour, in which the signal-tower, and even the four-gun battery, were introduced, some jealous friends of the