roughly: 'No!' and adds: 'I'll sell you this
pick for a glass of ale or a dram of whisky.' Here are angry words
passing between a middle-aged man and a youth, respecting the right of
possession, the former having driven the latter away from a
promising-looking place on which he was employed, and commenced
operations upon it himself.

It is Saturday; and the mills on the river Leven are stopped at noon,
to allow the water in the lake from which it flows to accumulate its
supplies for the following week's operations. Freed thus from labour,
the spinners hasten to the scene of attraction, and largely swell the
crowd already assembled there. The men begin the search with
eagerness, while the women content themselves with looking on; but it
is evident that they are unaccustomed to the use of the instruments
they have assumed, and that long practice will be necessary before
they can turn them to much account. Here are bands of colliers able to
wield them to purpose, yet how unwilling they appear to be to put
forth their strength. They came in the expectation of getting gold for
the lifting, which is nowhere the case; and are evidently disappointed
in finding that both effort and perseverance are necessary. Indeed, it
surprised us to see so little disposition to make and maintain
exertion on the part of those who fancied that certain riches would be
the result. Notwithstanding the numerous traces of picking, hammering,
and shovelling they have left behind them, there is not an excavation
a foot deep; while over a crevice in the rock, three inches square, 'a
digger' has left the words, scratched with a piece of slate: 'There
is no gold here,' as if he had done all that was necessary to prove
it. Even in the loose debris around the quarry--with which the
substance referred to abounds--there is no trace of a digging wider or
deeper than a man's hat. We have seen a student make greater and
longer-continued exertion to get a fossil shell, and a terrier dog to
get a rat or a rabbit, than any of the gold-seekers have. Burns the
poet, in his lament, entitled _Man was made to Mourn_, complains, with
more pathos and sentiment than truth and justice, that the landlords
will not 'give him leave to toil.' That is not the leave most men
desire, but the leave to be idle. If gold were to be got for the
lifting, and bread were as easily procured as water, man would not be
disposed to take healthful exercise, much less labour or toil.

We sh