WINTER.- -THE POOR-LAWS.

63

of life, and each dish a year. In the presence of that Haggis, I feel myself immortal.

Shepherd. Butcher-meat, though, and coals, are likely, let me tell you, to sell at a perfec' ransom frae Martinmas to Michaelmas.

North. Paltry thought. Let beeves and muttons look up, even to the stars, and fuel be precious as at the Pole. Another slice of the stot, James, another slice of the stot—and, Mr Ambrose, smash that half-ton lump of black diamond till the chimney roar and radiate like Mount Vesuvius.-Why so glum, Tickler?-why so glum?

Tickler. This outrageous merriment grates my spirits. I am not in the mood. 'Twill be a severe winter, and I think of the poor.

North. Why the devil think of the poor at this time of day? Are not wages good, and work plenty, and is not charity a British virtue ?

Shepherd. I never heard sic even-doun nonsense, Mr Tickler, in a' my born days. I met a puir woman ganging alang the brigg, wi' a deevil's dizzen o' bairns, ilka ane wi' a daud1 o' breid in the tae haun and a whang2 o' cheese i' the tither, while their cheeks were a' blawn out like sae mony Boreases, wi' something better than wun'; and the mither hersel, a weelfaur'd hizzie, tearin awa at the fleshy shank o' a marrow-bane, mad wi' hunger, but no wi' starvation, for these are twa different things, Mr Tickler. I can assure you that puir folks, mair especially gin they be beggars, are hungry four or five times a-day; but starvation is seen at night sitting by an empty aumry3 and a cauld hearthstane. There's little or nae starvation the now, in Scotlan'!

4

North. The people are, on the whole, well off.-—Take some pickles, Timothy, to your steak. Dickson's mustard is superb.

Shepherd. I canna say that I a'thegither just properly understan' the system o' the puir-laws; but I ken this, that puir folks there will be till the end o' Blackwood's Magazine, and, that granted, maun there no be some kind o' provision for them, though it may be kittle to calculate the preceese amount?

1 Daud-lump. 2 Whang-slice. 4 An Edinburgh seedsman.

3 Aumry-cupboard in a corner. 5 Kittle-difficult.

North. Are the English people a dependent, ignorant, grovelling, mean, debased, and brutal people?

Shepherd. Not they, indeed-they're a powerfu' population, second only to the Scotch. The English puir-laws had better be cut down some twa-three millions, but no abolished. Thae Political Economy creatures are a cruel set-greedier theirsels than gaberlunzies'-yet grudging a handfu' o' meal to an auld wife's wallet. Charity is in the heart, not in the head, and the open haun should be stretched out o' the sudden, unasked and free, not held back wi' clutched fingers like a meeser, while the Wiseacre shakes his head in cauldrife2 calculation, and ties a knot on the purse o' him on principle.

North. Well said, James, although perhaps your tenets are scarcely tenable.

Shepherd. Scarcely tenable? Wha'll take them frae me either by force or reason? Oh! we're fa'en into argument, and that's what I canna thole3 at meals. Mr Tickler, there's nae occasion, man, to look sae down-in-the-mouth—everybody kens ye're a man o' genius, without your pretending to be melancholy.

Tickler. I have no appetite, James.

Shepherd. Nae appeteet! how suld ye hae an appeteet? A bowl o' Mollygo-tawny soup, wi' bread in proportion—twa codlins (wi' maist part o' a labster in that sass), the first gash o' the jiget-stakes-then I'm maist sure, pallets, and finally guse-no to count jeellies and coosturd, and bluemange, and many million mites in that Campsie Stilton-better than ony English-a pot o' Draught-twa lang shankers o' ale-noos and thans a sip o' the auld port, and just afore grace a caulker o' Glenlivet, that made your een glower and water in your head as if you had been lookin at Mrs Siddons in the sleepwalking scene in Shakspeare's tragedy of Macbeth-gin ye had an appeteet after a' that destruction o' animal and vegetable matter, your maw would be like that o' Death himsel, and your stamach insatiable as the grave.

Tickler. Mr Ambrose, no laughter, if you please, sir.

North. Come, come, Tickler-had Hogg and Heraclitus been contemporaries, it would have saved the shedding of a world of tears.

Shepherd. Just laugh your fill, Mr Ambrose.

A smile is

1 Gaberlunzies-mendicants. 2 Cauldrife-chill. 3 Thole-endure.

AMBROSE'S WAITING.

aye becoming that honest face o' yours. sae wutty again, gin I can help it.

65

But I'll no be

(Exit Mr Ambrose with the epergne.)

Tickler. Mr Ambrose understands me. It does my heart good to know when his arm is carefully extended over my shoulder, to put down or to remove. None of that hurry-andno-speed waiter-like hastiness about our Ambrose! With an ever-observant eye he watches the goings-on of the board, like an astronomer watching the planetary system. He knows when a plate is emptied to be filled no more, and lo! it is withdrawn as by an invisible hand. During some syncope and solemn pause" you may lay down your knife and fork and wipe your brow, nor dread the evanishing of a halfdevoured howtowdy; the moment your eye has decided on a dish, there he stands plate in hand in a twinkling beside tongue or turkey! No playing at cross purposes-the sheep's head of Mullion usurping the place of the kidneys of ODoherty. The most perfect confidence reigns round the board. The possibility of mistake is felt to be beyond the fear of the hungriest imagination; and sooner shall one of Jupiter's satellites forsake his orbit, jostling the stars, and wheeling away into some remoter system, than our Ambrose run against any of the subordinates, or leave the room while North is in his chair. North. Hear the Glenlivet!-hear the Glenlivet!

Shepherd. No, Mr North, nane o' your envious attributions o' ae spirit for anither. It's the sowl within him that breaks out, like lightning in the collied' night, or in the dwawm-like" silence o' a glen the sudden soun' o' a trumpet.

Tickler. Give me your hand, James.

Shepherd. There noo-there noo. It's aye me that's said to be sae fond o' flattery; and yet only see how by a single word o' my mouth I can add sax inches to your stature, Mr Tickler, and make ye girn like the spirit that saluted De Gama at the Cape o' Storms.

North. Hear the Glenlivet!-hear the Glenlivet!

3

Shepherd. Hush, ye haveril. Give us a speech yoursel, Mr North, and then see who'll cry, "Hear the Glenlivet!

1 "Like lightning in the collied night,” Midsummer Night's Dream. Collied -blackened as with coal.

2 Dwawm-like-swoon-like.

VOL. I.

3 Haveril—a chattering half-witted person.

E

hear the Glenlivet!" then. But haud your tongues, baith o' you-dinna stir a fit. And as for you, Mr Tickler, howk the tow out o' your lug, and hear till a sang.

I'LL

sing of yon glen o' red heather, An' a dear thing that ca's

it her hame, Wha's a' made o' love-life

together, Frae the

tie o' the shoe to the kembe. Love beckons in ev'-ry sweet motion, Com

manding due homage to gie; But the shrine of my dear-est de - vo - tion

Tickler (Passing his hand across his eyes). "I'm never merry when I hear sweet music."

North. Your voice, James, absolutely gets mellower through years. Next York Festival you must sing a solo-"Angels ever bright and fair," or "Farewell, ye limpid streams and floods."

Shepherd. I was at the last York Festival, and one day I was in the chorus, next to Grundy of Kirk-by-Lonsdale. I kent my mouth was wide open, but I never heard my ain voice in the magnificent roar.

North. Describe-James-describe.

Shepherd. As weel describe a glorious dream of the seventh heaven. Thousands upon thousands o' the most beautiful