was necessary for me to go to
Scotland, for a few days. I had two very powerful reasons for this
excursion:--first, because an old and valued friend of mine was there,
whom I had not met for many years, and whom I could not think of leaving
this country without seeing again; and secondly, because I was desirous
of visiting the residence of my forefathers on the Tweed, which,
although it had passed out of their possession many years ago, was still
endeared to me as their home, as the scene of the family traditions; and
above all, as their burial place.

The grave is the first stage on the journey, from this to the other
world. We are permitted to escort our friends so far, and no further; it
is there we part for ever. It is there the human form is deposited, when
mortality is changed for immortality. This burial place contains no one
that I have ever seen or known; but it contains the remains of those
from whom I derived my lineage and my name. I therefore naturally
desired to see it.

Having communicated my intention to my two American companions, I was
very much struck with the different manner in which they received the
announcement.

"Come back soon, Squire," said Mr. Slick; "go and see your old friend,
if you must, and go to the old campin' grounds of your folks; though the
wigwam I expect has gone long ago, but don't look at anythin' else.
I want we should visit the country together. I have an idea from what
little I have seed of it, Scotland is over-rated. I guess there is a
good deal of romance about their old times; and that, if we knowed all,
their old lairds warn't much better, or much richer than our Ingian
chiefs; much of a muchness. Kinder sorter so, and kinder sorter not so,
no great odds. Both hardy, both fierce; both as poor as Job's Turkey,
and both tarnation proud, at least, that's my idea to a notch.

"I have often axed myself what sort of a gall that splenderiferous,
'Lady of the Lake' of Scott's was, and I kinder guess she was a
red-headed Scotch heifer, with her hair filled with heather, and
feather, and lint, with no shoes and stockings to her feet, and that

"Her lips apart
Like monument of Grecian art"

meant that she stared with her eyes and mouth wide open, like other
county galls that never see'd nothing before--a regilar screetch owl
in petticoats. And I suspicion, that Mr. Rob Roy was a sort of thievin'
devil of a white Mohawk, that found it easier to steal cattle, than
rais