a
person notorious as a poacher and smuggler. We received many messages of
congratulation from the neighbouring families, and it was generally
allowed that a few such instances of spirited resistance would greatly
check the presumption of these lawless men. My father distributed rewards
among his servants, and praised Hazlewood's courage and coolness to the
skies. Lucy and I came in for a share of his applause, because we had
stood fire with firmness, and had not disturbed him with screams or
expostulations. As for the Dominie, my father took an opportunity of
begging to exchange snuff-boxes with him. The honest gentleman was much
flattered with the proposal, and extolled the beauty of his new snuff-box
excessively. "It looked," he said, "as well as if it were real gold from
Ophir." Indeed, it would be odd if it should not, being formed in fact of
that very metal; but, to do this honest creature justice, I believe the
knowledge of its real value would not enhance his sense of my father's
kindness, supposing it, as he does, to be pinchbeck gilded. He has had a
hard task replacing the folios which were used in the barricade,
smoothing out the creases and dog's-ears, and repairing the other
disasters they have sustained during their service in the fortification.
He brought us some pieces of lead and bullets which these ponderous tomes
had intercepted during the action, and which he had extracted with great
care; and, were I in spirits, I could give you a comic account of his
astonishment at the apathy with which we heard of the wounds and
mutilation suffered by Thomas Aquinas or the venerable Chrysostom. But I
am not in spirits, and I have yet another and a more interesting incident
to communicate. I feel, however, so much fatigued with my present
exertion that I cannot resume the pen till to-morrow. I will detain this
letter notwithstanding, that you may not feel any anxiety upon account of
your own

'JULIA MANNERING.'

CHAPTER II
Here's a good world!
Knew you of this fair work?

King John.

JULIA MANNERING to MATILDA MARCHMONT

'I must take up the thread of my story, my dearest Matilda, where I broke
off yesterday.

'For two or three days we talked of nothing but our siege and its
probable consequences, and dinned into my father's unwilling ears a
proposal to go to Edinburgh, or at least to Dumfries, where there is
remarkably good society, until the resentment of these outlaw