<< I scorn your words, sir; you are an uncivil

"

per

son, and I desire you will not stand there to slander me at my ain stair-head."

« The woman," said the senior, looking with an arch glance at his destined travelling companion, << does not understand the words of action. -Woman,» again turning to the vault, «< I arraign not thy character, but I desire to know what is become of thy coach."

"

What's your will?» answered Mrs Macleuchar, relapsing into deafness."

« We have taken places, ma'am,» said the younger stranger, in your diligence for Queensferry>> -« Which should have been half-way on the road before now," continued the elder and more impatient traveller, rising in wrath as he spoke; « and now in all likelihood we shall miss the tide, and I have business of importance on the other side--and your cursed coach» ——

« The coach?--gude guide us, gentlemen, is it no on the stand yet?» answered the old lady, her shrill tone of expostulation sinking into a kind of apologetic whine; « Is it the coach ye can have been waiting for?»

« What else could have kept us broiling in the sun by the side of the gutter here, you—you faithless woman?»

Mrs Macleuchar now ascended her trap stair, (for such it might be called, though composed of stone,) until her nose came upon a level with the pavement; then, after wiping her spectacles to look for that which she well knew was not to be

found, she exclaimed, with well-feigned astonishment, «Gude guide us-saw ever ony body the like o' that! >>

Yes, you abominable woman," vociferated the traveller, « many have seen the like of it, and all will see the like of it, that have any thing to do with your trolloping sex;" then, pacing in great indignation before the door of the shop, still as he passed and repassed, like a vessel who gives her broadside as she comes abreast of a hostile fortress, he shot down complaints, threats, and reproaches, on the embarrassed Mrs Macleuchar. He would take a post-chaise-he would call a hackney-coach-he would take four horses-he must-he would be on the north side to-day-and all the expence of his journey, besides damages, direct and consequential, arising from delay, should be accumulated on the devoted head of Mrs Macleuchar.

There was something so comic in his pettish resentment, that the younger traveller, who was in no such pressing hurry to depart, could not help being amused with it, especially as it was obvious, that every now and then the old gentleman, though very angry, could not help laughing at his own vehemence. But when Mrs Macleuchar began also to join in the laughter, he quickly put a stop to her ill-timed merriment.

« Woman," said he, « is that advertisement thine?» shewing a bit of crumpled printed paper: « Does it not set forth, that, God willing, as you hypocritically express it, the Hawes Fly, or

Queensferry Diligence, would set forth to-day at twelve o'clock, and is it not, thou falsest of creatures, now a quarter past twelve, and no such fly or diligence to be seen?-Doest thou know the consequence of seducing the lieges by false reports?-Doest thou know it might be brought under the statute of leasing-making? Answer; and for once in thy long, useless, and evil life, let it be in the words of truth and sincerity-hast thou such a coach?-Is it in rerum natura?—or is this base annunciation a mere swindle on the incautious, to beguile them of their time, their patience, and three shillings of sterling money of this realm?-Hast thou, I say, such a coach? aye

or no?»

« O dear, yes, sir; the neighbours ken the diligence weel, green picked out wi' red-three yellow wheels and a black ane.»>

« Woman, thy special description will not serve-it may be only a lie with a circumstance. >>

O, man, man!» said the overwhelmed Mrs Macleuchar, totally exhausted by having been so long the butt of his rhetoric, «take back your three shillings, and mak me quit o' ye.»

« Not so fast, not so fast, woman-will three shillings transport me to Queensferry agreeably to thy treacherous program?— or will it requite the damage I may sustain by leaving my business undone, or repay the expences which I must disburse if I am obliged to tarry a day at the South Ferry for lack of tide?-Will it hire, I say, a pin

nace, for which alone the regular price is five shillings?»

Here his argument was cut short by a lumbering noise, which proved to be the advance of the expected vehicle, pressing forward with all the dispatch to which the broken-winded jades that drew it could possibly be urged. With ineffable pleasure, Mrs Macleuchar saw her tormentor deposited in the leathern convenience; but still, as it was driving off, his head thrust out of the window reminded her, in words drowned amid the rumbling of the wheels, that, if the diligence did not attain the Ferry in time to save the flood-tide, she, Mrs Maleuchar, should be held responsible for all the consequences.

The coach had continued in motion for a mile or two before the stranger had completely repossessed himself of his equanimity, as was manifested by the doleful ejaculations which he made from time to time on the too great probability, or even certainty, of their missing the flood-tide. By degrees, however, his wrath subsided; he wiped his brows, relaxed his frown, and, undoing the parcel in his hand, produced his folio, on which he gazed from time to time with the knowing look of an amateur, admiring its height and condition, and ascertaining, by a minute and individual inspection of each leaf, that the volume was uninjured and entire from title-page to colophon. His fellow-traveller took the liberty of enquiring the subject of his studies. He lifted up his eyes with something of a sarcas

tic glance, as if he supposed the young querist would not relish, or perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced the book to be Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium Septentrionale, a book illustrative of the Roman remains in Scotland. The querist, unappalled by this learned title, proceeded to put several questions, which indicated, that he had made good use of a good education, and, although not possessed of minute information on the subject of antiquities, had yet acquaintance enough with the classics to render him an interested and intelligent auditor when they were enlarged upon. The elder traveller, observing with pleasure the capacity of his temporary companion to understand and answer him, plunged, › nothing loth, into a sea of discussion concerning urns, vases, votive altars, Roman camps, and the rules of castrametation.

The pleasure of this discourse had such a dulcifying tendency, that, although two causes of delay occurred, each of much more sericus duration than that which had drawn down his wrath upon the unlucky Mrs Macleuchar, our ANTIQUARY only bestowed upon the delay the honour of a few episodical poohs and pshaws, which rather seemed to regard the interruption of his disquisition than the delay of his journey.

The first of these stops was occasioned by the breaking of a spring, which half an hour's labour hardly repaired. To the second, the Antiquary was himself accessory, if not the principal cause of it; for, observing that one of the horses had