efore a favourable north-west wind. The ship leaned
her side to the gale, and went roaring through the waves, leaving a long
and rippling furrow to track her course. The city and port from which he
had sailed became undistinguishable in the distance; the hills by which
they were surrounded melted finally into the blue sky, and Morton was
separated for several years from the land of his nativity.

CHAPTER XVI.

Whom does time gallop withal?
As You Like It.

It is fortunate for tale-tellers that they are not tied down like
theatrical writers to the unities of time and place, but may conduct
their personages to Athens and Thebes at their pleasure, and bring them
back at their convenience. Time, to use Rosalind's simile, has hitherto
paced with the hero of our tale; for betwixt Morton's first appearance as
a competitor for the popinjay and his final departure for Holland hardly
two months elapsed. Years, however, glided away ere we find it possible
to resume the thread of our narrative, and Time must be held to have
galloped over the interval. Craving, therefore, the privilege of my cast,
I entreat the reader's attention to the continuation of the narrative, as
it starts from a new era, being the year immediately subsequent to the
British Revolution.

Scotland had just begun to repose from the convulsion occasioned by a
change of dynasty, and, through the prudent tolerance of King William,
had narrowly escaped the horrors of a protracted civil war. Agriculture
began to revive, and men, whose minds had been disturbed by the violent
political concussions, and the general change of government in Church and
State, had begun to recover their ordinary temper, and to give the usual
attention to their own private affairs, in lieu of discussing those of
the public. The Highlanders alone resisted the newly established order of
things, and were in arms in a considerable body under the Viscount of
Dundee, whom our readers have hitherto known by the name of Grahame of
Claverhouse. But the usual state of the Highlands was so unruly that
their being more or less disturbed was not supposed greatly to affect the
general tranquillity of the country, so long as their disorders were
confined within their own frontiers. In the Lowlands, the Jacobites, now
the undermost party, had ceased to expect any immediate advantage by open
resistance, and were, in their turn, driven to