dispatch to which the broken-winded jades that drew it could possibly
be urged. With ineffable pleasure, Mrs. Macleuchar saw her tormentor
deposited in the leathern convenience; but still, as it was driving off,
his head thrust out of the window reminded her, in words drowned amid
the rumbling of the wheels, that, if the diligence did not attain the
Ferry in time to save the flood-tide, she, Mrs. Macleuchar, should be
held responsible for all the consequences that might ensue.

The coach had continued in motion for a mile or two before the stranger
had completely repossessed himself of his equanimity, as was manifested
by the doleful ejaculations, which he made from time to time, on the too
great probability, or even certainty, of their missing the flood-tide.
By degrees, however, his wrath subsided; he wiped his brows, relaxed his
frown, and, undoing the parcel in his hand, produced his folio, on which
he gazed from time to time with the knowing look of an amateur, admiring
its height and condition, and ascertaining, by a minute and individual
inspection of each leaf, that the volume was uninjured and entire
from title-page to colophon. His fellow-traveller took the liberty
of inquiring the subject of his studies. He lifted up his eyes with
something of a sarcastic glance, as if he supposed the young querist
would not relish, or perhaps understand, his answer, and pronounced
the book to be Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium Septentrionale,* a book
illustrative of the Roman remains in Scotland.

* Note B. Sandy Gordon's Itinerarium.

The querist, unappalled by this learned title, proceeded to put
several questions, which indicated that he had made good use of a good
education, and, although not possessed of minute information on the
subject of antiquities, had yet acquaintance enough with the classics to
render him an interested and intelligent auditor when they were enlarged
upon. The elder traveller, observing with pleasure the capacity of
his temporary companion to understand and answer him, plunged, nothing
loath, into a sea of discussion concerning urns, vases, votive, altars,
Roman camps, and the rules of castrametation.

The pleasure of this discourse had such a dulcifying tendency, that,
although two causes of delay occurred, each of much more serious
duration than that which had drawn down his wrath upon the unlucky Mrs.
Macleuchar, our =Antiquary= only bestowed on the delay the honour of
a few episodical poohs an