ling, and craves the protection of your ho nour's party in thae kittle times. Ah! your honour has a notable faculty in searching and explaining the secret,-ay, the secret and obscure and incomprehensible causes of the backslidings of the land; aye, your honour touches the root of the matter."

Freend," said Gilfillan, with a more complacent voice than he had hitherto used," honour not me; I do not go out to park-dikes, and to steadings, and to market-towns, to have herds and cotters and burghers pull aff their bannets to me as they do to Major Melville o' Cairnvreckan, and ca' me laird, or captain, or honour;-no, my sma' means, whilk are no aboon twenty thousand mark, have had the blessing of increase, but the pride of my heart has not increased with them; nor do I delight to be called captain," though I have the subscribed commission of that gospel-searching nobleman, the Earl of Glencairn, in whilk I am so de

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signated. While I live, I am, and will be called Habakkuk Gilfillan, who will stand up for the standards of doctrine agreed to by the ance-famous Kirk of Scotland, before she trafficked with the accursed Achan, while he has a plack in his purse, or a drap o' bluid in his body."

Ah," said the pedlar, "I have seen your land about Mauchlin-a fertile spot; your lines have fallen in pleasant places; and siccan a breed o' cattle is not in ony laird's land in Scotland."

"Ye say right,-ye say right, freend," retorted Gilfillan eagerly, for he was not inaccessible to flattery upon this subject. "Ye say right; they are the real Lancashire, and there's no the like o' them even at the Mains of Kilmaurs ;" and he then entered into a discussion of their excellencies, to which our readers would probably be as indifferent as our hero. After this excursion, the leader returned to his the ological discussions, while the pedlar, less profound upon those mystic points, con

tented himself with groaning, and express

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ing his edification at suitable intervals. "What a blessing it wad be to the puir blinded popish nations among whom I hae sojourned, to have siccan a light to their paths! I hae been as far as Muscovia in my sma' trading way, as a travelling merchant; and I hae been through France, and the Low Countries, and a' Poland, and maist feck o' Germany, and O! it wad grieve your honour's soul to see the murmuring, and the singing, and massing, that's in the kirk, and the piping that's in the quire, and the heathenish dancing and dicing upon the Sabbath.”

9 This set Gilfillan off upon the Book of Sports and the Covenant, and the Engagers, and the Protesters, and the Whiggamores? Raid, and the Assembly of Divines at Westminster, and the Longer and Shorther Catechism, and the Excommunication at Torwood, and the slaughter of Archbishop Sharpe. This last topic again led him into the lawfulness of defensive arms, on

3:

which subject he uttered much more sense than could have been expected from some other parts of his harangue, and attracted even Waverley's attention, who had hitherto been lost in his own sad reflections. Mr Gilfillan then considered the lawfulness of a private man standing forth as the avenger of public oppression; and as he was labouring with great earnestness the cause of Mas James Mitchell, an accident occurred which interrupted his harangue. w

The rays of the sun were lingering on

the very verge of the horizon as the parbty ascended a hollow and somewhat steep path, which led to the summit of a rising ground. The country was uninclosed, being part of a very extensive heath or common; but it was far from level, exhibiting. in many places hollows filled with furze and broom; in others, little dingles of. stunted brushwood. A thicket of the latter description crowned the hill up which the party ascended. The foremost of the band, being the stoutest and most active,

had pushed on, and, having surmounted the ascent, were out of ken for the present. Gilfillan, with the pedlar, and the small party who were Waverley's more im mediate guard, were near the top of the ascent, and the remainder straggled after them at a considerable interval.

Such was the situation of matters, when the pedlar, missing, as he said, a little doggie which belonged to him, began to halt: and whistle for the animal. This signal, repeated more than once, gave offence tow the rigour of his companion, the rather be cause it appeared to indicate inattention to the treasures of theological and controversial knowledge which he was pouring out for his edification. He therefore signified gruffly, that he could not waste his time in waiting for an useless cur.

"But if your honour wad consider the case of Tobit"

"Tobit!" exclaimed Gilfillan, with great heat; "Tobit and his dog baith are ali together heathenish and apocryphal, and