truth, that you deal in such tender wares, Bryce," replied Mordaunt, dissatisfied as well with the tenor of the reply as with the affected scruples of the respondent.

"That's as muckle as to say, that I suld hae minded you was a flinger and a fiddler yoursell, Maister Mordaunt; but I am an auld man, and maun unburden my conscience. But ye will be for the dance, I sall warrant, that's to be at Burgh-Westra on John's Even (Saunt John's, as the blinded creatures ca' him), and nae doubt ye will be for some worldly braws-hose, waistcoats, or sic like? I hae pieces frae Flanders "—With that he placed his movable warehouse on the table, and began to unlock it.

"Dance!" repeated Mordaunt-" Dance on Saint John's Even? Were you desired to bid me to it, Bryce ?"

"Na-But ye ken weel eneugh ye wad be welcome, bidden or no bidden. This Captain-how-ca'-ye-him?-is to be skudler, as they ca't-the first of the gang, like.”

"The devil take him!" said Mordaunt, in impatient surprise. "A' in gude time," replied the jagger; "hurry no man's cattle the devil will hae his due, I warrant ye, or it winna be for lack of seeking. But it's true I'm telling you, for a' ye stare like a wild cat; and this same Captain-I wat-na-his-name— bought ane of the very waistcoats that I am ganging to show ye-purple, wi' a gowd binding, and bonnily broidered; and I have a piece for you, the neighbour of it, wi' a green grund; and if ye mean to streek yoursell up beside him, ye maun e'en buy it, for it's gowd that glances in the lasses' een nowadays. See-look till't," he added, displaying the pattern in various points of view; "look till it through the light, and till the light through it-wi' the grain, and against the grain-it shows ony gate-cam frae Antwerp a' the gate-four dollars is the price; --and yon captain was sae weel pleased that he flang down a twenty shilling Jacobus, and bade me keep the change and be d-d-poor silly profane creature, I pity him.'

Without inquiring whether the pedlar bestowed his compassion on the worldly imprudence or the religious deficiencies of Captain Cleveland, Mordaunt turned from him, folded his arms, and paced the apartment, muttering to himself, "Not asked-A stranger to be king of the feast!"-Words which he repeated so earnestly, that Bryce caught a part of their import. "As for asking, I am almaist bauld to say that ye will be asked, Maister Mordaunt."

"but

"Did they mention my name, then?" said Mordaunt. "I canna preceesely say that," said Bryce Snailsfoot; ye needna turn away your head sae sourly, like a sealgh when he leaves the shore; for, do you see, I heard distinctly that a' the revellers about are to be there; and is't to be thought they

would leave out you, an auld kend freend, and the lightest foot at sic frolics (Heaven send you a better praise in His ain gude time!) that ever flang at a fiddle-squeak, between this and Unst? Sae I consider ye altogether the same as invited—and ye had best provide yourself wi' a waistcoat, for brave and brisk will every man be that's there-the Lord pity them!"

He thus continued to follow with his green glazen eyes the motions of young Mordaunt Mertoun, who was pacing the room in a very pensive manner, which the jagger probably misinterpreted, as he thought, like Claudio, that if a man is sad, it must needs be because he lacks money. Bryce, therefore, after another pause thus accosted him: "Ye needna be sad about the matter, Maister Mordaunt; for although I got the just price of the article from the captain-man, yet I maun deal freendly wi' you, as a kend freend and customer, and bring the price, as they say, within your purse-mouth—or it's the same to me to let it lie ower till Martinmas, or e'en to Candlemas. I am decent in the warld, Maister Mordaunt-forbid that I should hurry onybody, far mair a freend that has paid me siller afore now. Or I wad be content to swap the garment for the value in feathers or sea-otters' skins, or ony kind of peltrie-nane kens better then yoursell how to come by sic ware-and I am sure I hae furnished you wi' the primest o' powder. I dinna ken if I tell'd ye it was out o' the kist of Captain Plunket, that perished on the Scaw of Unst, wi' the armed brig Mary, sax years syne. He was a prime fowler himself, and luck it was that the kist came ashore dry. I sell that to nane but gude marksmen. And so, I was saying, if ye had ony wares ye liked to coup *for the waistcoat, I wad be ready to trock wi' you, for assuredly ye will be wanted at Burgh-Westra, on Saint John's Even; and ye wadna like to look waur than the Captain-that wadna be setting."

"I will be there, at least, whether wanted or not," said Mordaunt, stopping short in his walk, and taking the waistcoatpiece hastily out of the pedlar's hand; "and, as you say, will not disgrace them."

"Haud a care-haud a care, Maister Mordaunt," exclaimed the pedlar; "ye handle it as it were a bale of coarse wadmaal -ye'll fray't to bits-ye might weel say my ware is tender— and ye'll mind the price is four dollars-Sall I put ye in my book for it?"

"No," said Mordaunt hastily; and, taking out his purse, he flung down the money.

"Grace to ye to wear the garment," said the joyous pedlar, "and to me to guide the siller; and protect us from earthly vanities and earthly covetousness; and send you the white

* Barter.

linen raiment, whilk is mair to be desired than the muslins, and cambrics, and lawns, and silks of this world; and send me the talents which avail more than much fine Spanish gold, or Dutch dollars either-and-but God guide the callant, what for is he wrapping the silk up that gate, like a wisp of hay?"

At this moment old Swertha, the housekeeper, entered, to whom, as if eager to get rid of the subject, Mordaunt threw his purchase, with something like careless disdain; and, telling her to put it aside, snatched his gun, which stood in the corner, threw his shooting accoutrements about him, and without noticing Bryce's attempt to enter into conversation upon the "braw sealskin, as saft as doe-leather," which made the sling and cover of his fowling-piece, he left the apartment abruptly.

The jagger, with those green, goggling, and gain-descrying kind of optics, which we have already described, continued gazing for an instant after the customer, who treated his wares with such irreverence.

Swertha also looked after him with some surprise. "The callant's in a creel," quoth she.

"In a creel!" echoed the pedlar; "he will be as wowf as ever his father was. To guide in that gate a bargain that cost him four dollars!-very, very Fifish, as the east-country fisherfolk say."

"Four dollars for that green rag!" said Swertha, catching at the words which the jagger had unwarily suffered to escape "that was a bargain indeed! I wonder whether he is the greater fule, or you the mair rogue, Bryce Snailsfoot."

"I didna say it cost him preceesely four dollars," said Snailsfoot; "but if it had, the lad's siller's his ain, I hope; and he is auld eneugh to make his ain bargains. Mair by token, the gudes are weel worth the money, and mair.”

"Mair by token," said Swertha coolly, "I will see what his father thinks about it."

"Ye'll no be sae ill-natured, Mistress Swertha," said the jagger; "that will be but cauld thanks for the bonny owerlay that I hae brought you a' the way frae Lerwick.”

"And a bonny price ye'll be setting on't," said Swertha; "for that's the gate your good deeds end."

"Ye sall hae the fixing of the price yoursell, or it may lie ower till ye're buying something for the house, or for your master, and it can make a' ae count."

"Troth and that's true, Bryce Snailsfoot, I am thinking we'll want some napery sune--for it's no to be thought we can spin, and the like, as if there was a mistress in the house; and sae we mak nane at hame."

"And that's what I ca' walking by the Word," said the

jagger. "Go unto those that buy and sell; there's muckle profit in that text.”

"There's a pleasure in dealing with a discreet man, that can make profit of onything," said Swertha; "and now that I take another look at that daft callant's waistcoat-piece, I think it is honestly worth four dollars."

CHAPTER X

I have possessed the regulation of the weather and the distribution of the seasons. The sun has listened to my dictates, and passed from tropic to tropic by my direction; the clouds, at my command, have poured forth their waters.-RASSELAS.

ANY sudden cause for anxious and mortifying reflection, which, in advanced age, occasions sullen and pensive inactivity, stimulates youth to eager and active exertion; as if, like the hurt deer, they endeavoured to drown the pain of the shaft by the rapidity of motion. When Mordaunt caught up his gun and rushed out of the house of Jarlshof, he walked on with great activity, over waste and wild, without any determined purpose, except that of escaping, if possible, from the smart of his own irritation. His pride was effectually mortified by the report of the jagger, which coincided exactly with some doubts he had been led to entertain, by the long and unkind silence of his friends at Burgh-Westra.

If the fortunes of Cæsar had doomed him, as the poet suggests, to have been

"But the best wrestler on the green,"

it is nevertheless to be presumed, that a foil from a rival, in that rustic exercise, would have mortified him as much as a defeat from a competitor, when he was struggling for the empery of the world. And even SO Mordaunt Mertoun, degraded in his own eyes from the height which he had occupied as the chief amongst the youth of the island, felt vexed and irritated, as well as humbled. The two beautiful sisters, also, whose smiles all were so desirous of acquiring, with whom he had lived on terms of such familiar affection, that, with the same ease and innocence, there was unconsciously mixed a shade of deeper though undefined tenderness than characterises fraternal love, they also seemed to have forgotten him. He could not be ignorant, that, in the universal opinion of all Dunrossness, nay, of the whole Mainland, he might have had every chance of being the favoured lover of either; and now at once, and without any failure on

his part, he was become so little to them, that he had lost even the consequence of an ordinary acquaintance. The old Udaller, too, whose hearty and sincere character should have made him more constant in his friendships, seemed to have been as fickle as his daughters, and poor Mordaunt had at once lost the smiles of the fair, and the favour of the powerful. These were uncomfortable reflections, and he doubled his pace, that he might outstrip them if possible.

Without exactly reflecting upon the route which he pursued, Mordaunt walked briskly on through a country where neither hedge, wall, nor enclosure of any kind interrupts the steps of the wanderer, until he reached a very solitary spot, where, embosomed among steep heathy hills, which sunk suddenly down on the verge of the water, lay one of those small freshwater lakes which are common in the Zetland Isles, whose outlets form the sources of the small brooks and rivulets by which the country is watered, and serve to drive the little mills which manufacture their grain.

It was

a mild summer day; the beams of the sun, as is not uncommon in Zetland, were moderated and shaded by a silvery haze which filled the atmosphere, and, destroying the strong contrast of light and shade, gave even to noon the sober livery of the evening twilight. The little lake, not threequarters of a mile in circuit, lay in profound quiet; its surface undimpled, save when one of the numerous water-fowl, which glided on its surface, dived for an instant under it. The depth of the water gave the whole that cerulean tint of bluish green, which occasioned its being called the Green Loch; and at present it formed so perfect a mirror to the bleak hills by which it was surrounded, and which lay reflected in its bosom, that it was difficult to distinguish the water from the land; nay, in the shadowy uncertainty occasioned by the thin haze, a stranger could scarce have been sensible that a sheet of water lay before him. A scene of more complete solitude, having all its peculiarities heightened by the extreme serenity of the weather, the quiet grey composed tone of the atmosphere, and the perfect silence of the elements, could hardly be imagined. The very aquatic birds, who frequented the spot in great numbers, forbore their usual flight and screams, and floated in profound tranquillity upon the silent water.

Without taking any determined aim-without having any determined purpose-almost without thinking what he was about, Mordaunt presented his fowling-piece, and fired across the lake. The large swan-shot dimpled its surface like a partial shower of hail-the hills took up the noise of the report, and repeated it again, and again, and again, to all their echoes; the water-fowl took to wing in eddying and