" Do the verses he sings belong to old Scottish poetry, Miss Bradwardine?>> « I believe not," she replied. « This poor creature had a brother, and Heaven, as if to compensate to the family Davie's deficiencies, had given him what the hamlet thought uncommon talents. An uncle contrived to educate him for the Scottish kirk, but he could not get preferment because he came from our ground. He returned from college hopeless and broken-hearted, and fell into a decline. My father supported him till his death, which happened before he was nineteen. He played beautifully on the flute, and was supposed to have a great turn for poetry. He was affectionate and compassionate to his brother, who followed him like his shadow, and we think that from him Davie gathered many fragments of songs and music unlike those of this country. But if we ask him where he got such a fragment as he is now singing, he either answers with wild and long fits of laughter, or else breaks into tears of lamentation; but was never heard to give any explanation, or mention his brother's name since his death. » Surely," said Edward, who was readily interested by a tale bordering on the romantic, surely more might be learned by more particular inquiry." K r Perhaps so,» answered Rose; « but my father will not permit any one to practise on his feelings on this subject.» By this time the Baron, with the help of Mr Saunderson, had indued a pair of jackboots of large dimension, and now invited our hero to follow him as he stalked clattering down the ample stair-case, tapping each huge balustrade as he passed with the butt of his massive horsewhip, and humming, with the air of a chasseur of Louis Quatorze, Pour la chasse ordonnée il faut préparer tout, Ho la ho! Vite! vite debout. THE Baron of Bradwardine, mounted on an active and well-managed horse, and seated on a demi-pique saddle, with deep housings to agree with his livery, was no bad representation of the old school. His light-coloured embroidered coat, and superbly-barred waistcoat, his brigadier-wig, surmounted by a small gold-laced cocked hat, completed his personal costume; but he was attended by two wellmounted servants on horseback, armed with holster-pistols. In this guise he ambled forth over hill and valley, the admiration of every farm-yard which they passed in their progress; till, « low down in a grassy vale,» they found David Gellatley leading two very tall deer greyhounds, and presiding over half a dozen curs, and about as many bare-legged and bare-headed boys, who, to procure the chosen distinction of attending on the chase, had not failed to tickle his ears with the dulcet appellation of Maister Gellatley, though probably all and each had hooted him on former occasions in the charac ter of daft Davie. But this is no uncommon strain of flattery to persons in office, nor altogether confined to the bare-legged villagers of Tully-Veolan; it was in fashion Sixty Years since, is now, and will be six hundred years hence, if this admirable compound of folly and knavery, called the world, shall be then in existence. These Gillie-white-foots, as they were called, were destined to beat the bushes, which they performed with so much success, that after half an hour's search a roe was started, coursed, and killed; the Baron following on his white horse, like Earl Percy of yore, and magnanimously flaying and disembowelling the slain animal (which, he observed, was called by the French chasseurs, faire la curée) with his own baronial couteau de chasse. After this ceremony, he conducted his guest homeward by a pleasant and circuitous route, commanding an extensive prospect of different villages and houses, to each of which Mr Bradwardine attached some anecdote of history or genealogy, told in language whimsical from prejudice and pedantry, but often respectable for the good sense and honourable feelings which his narratives displayed, and almost always curious, if not valuable, for the information they contained. The truth is, the ride seemed agreeable to both gentlemen, because they found amusement in each other's conversation, although their characters and habits of thinking were in many respects totally opposite. Edward, we have informed the reader, was warm in his feelings, wild and romantic in his ideas and in his taste of reading, with a strong disposition towards poetry. Mr Bradwardine was the reverse of all this, and piqued himself upon stalking through life with the same upright, starched, stoical gravity which distinguished his evening promenade upon the terrace of Tully-Veolan, where for hours together-the very model of old Hardyknute― Stately stepp'd he cast the wa', As for literature, he read the classic poets, to be sure, and the Epithalamium of Georgius Buchanan, and Arthur Johnstoun's Psalms, of a Sunday; and the Delicia Poetarum, and Sir David Lindsay's Works, and Barbour's Bruce, and Blind Harry's Wallace, and the Gentle Shepherd, and the Cherry and the Slae. But though he thus far sacrificed his time to the Muses, he would, if the truth must be spoken, |