ons, to learn that the couch-grass or dog-grass,
or, to speak scientifically, the Triticum repens of Linnaeus, does not
grow within a quarter of a mile of this castrum or hill-fort, whose
ramparts are uniformly clothed with short verdant turf; and that we must
seek a bog or palus at a still greater distance, the nearest being that
of Gird-the-mear, a full half-mile distant. The last syllable, bog, is
obviously, therefore, a mere corruption of the Saxon Burgh, which we
find in the various transmutations of Burgh, Burrow, Brough,
Bruff, Buff, and Boff, which last approaches very near the sound in
question--since, supposing the word to have been originally borgh, which
is the genuine Saxon spelling, a slight change, such as modern organs
too often make upon ancient sounds, will produce first Bogh, and then,
elisa H, or compromising and sinking the guttural, agreeable to the
common vernacular practice, you have either Boff or Bog as it happens.
The word Quickens requires in like manner to be altered,--decomposed,
as it were,--and reduced to its original and genuine sound, ere we can
discern its real meaning. By the ordinary exchange of the Qu into
Wh, familiar to the rudest tyro who has opened a book of old Scottish
poetry, we gain either Whilkens, or Whichensborgh--put we may suppose,
by way of question, as if those who imposed the name, struck with the
extreme antiquity of the place, had expressed in it an interrogation, To
whom did this fortress belong?'--Or, it might be Whackens-burgh, from the
Saxon Whacken, to strike with the hand, as doubtless the skirmishes
near a place of such apparent consequence must have legitimated such a
derivation," etc. etc. etc.

I will be more merciful to my readers than Oldbuck was to his guest;
for, considering his opportunities of gaining patient attention from a
person of such consequence as Lord Glenallan were not many, he used, or
rather abused, the present to the uttermost.

CHAPTER FIFTEENTH.

Crabbed age and youth
Cannot live together:--
Youth is full of pleasance,
Age is full of care;
Youth like summer morn,
Age like winter weather;
Youth like summer brave,
Age like winter bare.
Shakspeare.

In the morning of the following day, t