personage who was now come to the coach office.

He was a good-looking man of the age of sixty, perhaps older,--but his
hale complexion and firm step announced that years had not impaired
his strength or health. His countenance was of the true Scottish
cast, strongly marked, and rather harsh in features, with a shrewd
and penetrating eye, and a countenance in which habitual gravity was
enlivened by a cast of ironical humour. His dress was uniform, and of a
colour becoming his age and gravity; a wig, well dressed and powdered,
surmounted by a slouched hat, had something of a professional air. He
might be a clergyman, yet his appearance was more that of a man of
the world than usually belongs to the kirk of Scotland, and his first
ejaculation put the matter beyond question.

He arrived with a hurried pace, and, casting an alarmed glance towards
the dial-plate of the church, then looking at the place where the coach
should have been, exclaimed, "Deil's in it--I am too late after all!"

The young man relieved his anxiety, by telling him the coach had not
yet appeared. The old gentleman, apparently conscious of his own want of
punctuality, did not at first feel courageous enough to censure that
of the coachman. He took a parcel, containing apparently a large folio,
from a little boy who followed him, and, patting him on the head, bid
him go back and tell Mr. B----, that if he had known he was to have had so
much time, he would have put another word or two to their bargain,--then
told the boy to mind his business, and he would be as thriving a lad as
ever dusted a duodecimo. The boy lingered, perhaps in hopes of a penny
to buy marbles; but none was forthcoming. Our senior leaned his little
bundle upon one of the posts at the head of the staircase, and, facing
the traveller who had first arrived, waited in silence for about five
minutes the arrival of the expected diligence.

At length, after one or two impatient glances at the progress of the
minute-hand of the clock, having compared it with his own watch, a huge
and antique gold repeater, and having twitched about his features to
give due emphasis to one or two peevish pshaws, he hailed the old lady
of the cavern.

"Good woman,--what the d--l is her name?--Mrs. Macleuchar!"

Mrs. Macleuchar, aware that she had a defensive part to sustain in the
encounter which was to follow, was in no hurry to hasten the discussion
by returning a ready answer.

"Mrs. Macleuchar,--Good