ity and persevering disposition, 'my bosom's
lord should now sit lightly on his throne'; that gaiety should almost
involuntarily hover on my pen; and that my heart should beat like that
of a general, responsive to the drums of his advancing ally, without
whose help the battle must have been lost.

I did not suffer myself to be startled by this joyous surprise, but
continued to bend my strictest attention to what followed among this
singular party. That Poor Peter Peebles had been put on this wildgoose
chase by some of his juvenile advisers in the Parliament House, he
himself had intimated; but he spoke with much confidence, and the
Justice, who seemed to have some secret apprehension of being put to
trouble in the matter, and, as sometimes occurs on the English frontier,
a jealousy lest the superior acuteness of their northern neighbours
might overreach their own simplicity, turned to his clerk with a
perplexed countenance.

'Eh--oh--Nick--d--n thee--Hast thou got nothing to say? This is more
Scots law, I take it, and more Scotsmen.' (Here he cast a side-glance at
the owner of the mansion, and winked to his clerk.) 'I would Solway were
as deep as it is wide, and we had then some chance of keeping of them
out.'

Nicholas conversed an instant aside with the supplicant, and then
reported:--

'The man wants a border-warrant, I think; but they are only granted for
debt--now he wants one to catch a lawyer.'

'And what for no?' answered Peter Peebles, doggedly; 'what for no, I
would be glad to ken? If a day's labourer refuse to work, ye'll grant a
warrant to gar him do out his daurg--if a wench quean rin away from
her hairst, ye'll send her back to her heuck again--if sae mickle as a
collier or a salter make a moonlight flitting, ye will cleek him by the
back-spaul in a minute of time--and yet the damage canna amount to mair
than a creelfu' of coals, and a forpit or twa of saut; and here is a
chield taks leg from his engagement, and damages me to the tune of sax
thousand punds sterling; that is, three thousand that I should win, and
three thousand mair that I am like to lose; and you that ca' yourself a
justice canna help a poor man to catch the rinaway? A bonny like justice
I am like to get amang ye!'

'The fellow must be drunk,' said the clerk.

'Black fasting from all but sin,' replied the supplicant; 'I havena had
mair than a mouthful of cauld water since I passed the Border, and deil
a ane of ye is like to say to