membered by some old persons in Scotland,
as part of the retinue of the ancient nobility when travelling in full
ceremony. Behind these glancing meteors, who footed it as if the Avenger
of Blood had been behind them, came a cloud of dust, raised by riders
who preceded, attended, or followed the state-carriage of the Marquis.

The privilege of nobility, in those days, had something in it impressive
on the imagination. The dresses and liveries and number of their
attendants, their style of travelling, the imposing, and almost warlike,
air of the armed men who surrounded them, place them far above the
laird, who travelled with his brace of footmen; and as to rivalry from
the mercantile part of the community, these would as soon have thought
of imitating the state equipage of the Sovereign. At present it
is different; and I myself, Peter Pattieson, in a late journey to
Edinburgh, had the honour, in the mail-coach phrase to "change a leg"
with a peer of the realm. It was not so in the days of which I write;
and the Marquis's approach, so long expected in vain, now took place
in the full pomp of ancient aristocracy. Sir William Ashton was so
much interested in what he beheld, and in considering the ceremonial
of reception, in case any circumstance had been omitted, that he scarce
heard his son Henry exclaim: "There is another coach and six coming down
the east road, papa; can they both belong to the Marquis of A----?"

At length, when the youngster had fairly compelled his attention by
pulling his sleeve,

He turned his eyes, and, as he turned, survey'd
An awful vision.

Sure enough, another coach and six, with four servants or outriders in
attendance, was descending the hill from the eastward, at such a pace as
made it doubtful which of the carriages thus approaching from different
quarters would first reach the gate at the extremity of the avenue. The
one coach was green, the other blue; and not the green and blue chariots
in the circus of Rome or Constantinople excited more turmoil among the
citizens than the double apparition occasioned in the mind of the Lord
Keeper.

We all remember the terrible exclamation of the dying profligate, when a
friend, to destroy what he supposed the hypochondriac idea of a spectre
appearing in a certain shape at a given hour, placed before him a person
dressed up in the manner he described. "Mon Dieu!" said the expiring
sinner, who, it seems, saw both the real and polygraphic