m the gallery had sought shelter in a
neighboring tavern, where they hoped he would join them. He complied
with the invitation, but seemed for a long while incapable of enjoying
the merriment of his friends. "Come, _Duns_," cried _the
Baronet_,--"cheer up, man, and fill another tumbler; here's ******
going to give us _The Tailor_."--"Ah!" he answered, with a groan, "the
tailor was a better man than me, sirs; for he didna venture _ben_
until he _kenned the way_." A certain comical old song, which had,
perhaps, been a favorite with the minister of Girthon--

"The tailor he came here to sew,
And weel he kenn'd the way o't," etc.

was, however, sung and chorused; and the evening ended in the full
jollity of _High Jinks_.

Mr. M'Naught was deposed from the ministry, and his young advocate has
written out at the end of the printed papers on the case two of the
_songs_ which had been alleged in the evidence. They are both grossly
indecent. It is to be observed, that the research he had made with a
view to pleading this man's cause carried him, for the first, and I
believe for the last time, into the scenery of his Guy Mannering; and
I may add that several of the names of the minor characters of the
novel (that of _M'Guffog_, for example) appear in the list of
witnesses for and against his client.

If the preceding autumn forms a remarkable point in Scott's history,
as first introducing him to the manners of the wilder Border country,
the summer which followed left traces of equal importance. He gave the
greater part of it to an excursion which much extended his knowledge
of Highland scenery and character; and in particular furnished him
with the richest stores, which he afterwards turned {p.193} to
account in one of the most beautiful of his great poems, and in
several, including the first, of his prose romances.

Accompanied by Adam Ferguson, he visited on this occasion some of the
finest districts of Stirlingshire and Perthshire; and not in the
percursory manner of his more boyish expeditions, but taking up his
residence for a week or ten days in succession at the family
residences of several of his young allies of _the Mountain_, and from
thence familiarizing himself at leisure with the country and the
people round about. In this way he lingered some time at Tullibody,
the seat of the father of Sir Ralph Abercromby, and grandfather of his
friend Mr. George Abercromby (now Lord Abercromby); and heard