seen indicated by the futile instruments of vengeance they had
flung into the rough ribs of old Innerkepple. But let us proceed. The
proprietor, good Walter Kennedy, better known by the appellative of
Innerkepple, was not unlike the old strength which he inhabited; being
an old, rough, burly baron, on whose face Time had succeeded in making
many impressions, notwithstanding of all the opposing energies of a soul
that gloried, in all manner of ways, of cheating the old greybeard of
his rights and clearing off _his scores_. As a good spirit is said to be
like good old wine, getting softer and more balmy as it increases in
age, old Innerkepple proved, by his good humour and jovial manners, the
sterling qualities of his heart, which seemed, as he progressed in
years, to swell in proportion as that organ in others shrivelled and
decreased. He saw nothing in age but the necessity it imposes of having
more frequent recourse to its great enemy, the grape; and that power he
delighted to bow to, as he bent his head to empty the flagon which his
forebear, Kenneth, got from the first King James, as a reward for his
services against the house of Albany. Yet the good humour of the old
baron was not that of the toper, which, produced by the bowl, would not
exist but for its inspiring draught; the feeling of happiness and
universal good-will lay at the bottom of the heart itself, and was only
swelled into a state of glorious ebullition by the charm of the magic of
the vine branch--the true Mercurial _caduceus_, the only true magic wand
upon earth.

Though the spirit of antiquarianism is seldom associated with the
swelling affections of the heart that is dedicated to Momus, old
Innerkepple had, notwithstanding, been able to combine the two qualities
or powers. Sitting in his old wainscotted hall, over a goblet of spiced
Tokay, there were three old subjects he loved to speculate upon; and
these were--his old castle, with its chronicled wounds, where the Genius
of War sat alongside of the "auld carle" Time, in grim companionship;
secondly, the family tree of the Innerkepples--with himself, a good old
branch, kept green by good humour and Tokay, at the further verge; and a
small green twig, as slender as a lily stalk, issuing from the old
branch--no other than the daughter of Innerkepple, the fair Kate
Kennedy, a buxom damsel, of goodly proportions, and as merry, with the
aid of health and young sparkling blood, as the old baron was with t