DREAM CONTINUED.

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less atween the chances o' the game, their een and their features betrayed the agitation o' their souls; and I couldna but wonder why the puir deluded creatures pat themsels voluntarily into sic rackin misery.

North. These were the pigeons of your vision, James.

Shepherd. Mixed amang these were many middle-aged men, wi' naething verra kenspeckle1 about them, but a steady dour look no to be penetrated, and a callous cruelty in their een, sic as I ance observed amang a knot o' Englishers at an execution in Embro', who aye kept whisperin to ane anither, when the Forger was stannin on the scaffold, and then lookin at him, and then rather lauchin-though he had been ane o' their ain gang afore condemnation.

North. Greeks, James, Greeks.

Shepherd. Then, oh, sir! oh, sir! only think on't; white silvery-haired heads belanging to men atween seventy and eighty years o' age, or perhaps ayont fourscore, were interposed amang the sitters round that terrible table. Some o' these auld men had as reverend countenances as ony elder o' the Kirk-high and intellectual noses and foreheads—some wi' gold-mounted specs-and they held the cairds in their hauns just as if they had been Bibles, wi' grave and solemn -ay, even pious expression. And ever and anon great shoals o' siller were becomin theirs, which they scarcely pretended to look at—but still they continued and continued playin, like images.

North. No dream that, James. You must have been in a Hell.

Shepherd. Whisht. But a' the scene began to break up into irregularity; for the soul in sleep is like a ship in an arm o' the sea amang mountains. The wund comes a hundred opposite airts, and gin she hasna let drap her anchor (equivalent to the soul lying dreamless), she has sair wark to get back to the open sea.

North. The police-officers, I presume, broke your dream.

Shepherd. No, Mr North, it was finally my ain distracted spirit that kicked and spurred itsel awake-but you shall hear. The goblins a' began to rage without ony apparent cause, and the haill pairty to toss about like trees in a storm, frae the bairns to the auld men. And a' at ance there was 1 Kenspeckle-noticeable.

VOL. I.

I

the flash and the crack o' a pistol, and a bonny fair-hair'd boy fell aff his chair a' in a low, for the discharge had set him on fire-and bluidy, bluidy was his pale face, as his ain brither lifted his shattered head frae the floor.

North. My God, James, did you not awake then?

Shepherd. Awake! I didna ken I was sleepin. I wush I had, for it was a dismal hour. Nane o' the auld grey-headed men moved a muscle-but they buttoned up their pouchesand tuk their great-coats aff pegs on the wa', and without speakin disappeared. Sae did the lave, only wi' fear and fright-and nane but me and the twa brithers was left,brithers I saw they were, for like were they as twa flowers, the ane o' which has had its stalk broken, and its head withered, while the ither, although unhurt, seems to droop and mourn, and to hae lost maist o' its beauty.

North. There is truth-sad truth in dreams.

Shepherd. I heard him ravin about his father and his mother, and the name o' the place the auld folk lived in-and ane he ca'd Caroline !-his dead brither's sweetheart! We were on our knees beside the corpse, and he tore open the waistcoat and shirt, and put his hand to his brither's breast, in mad desperation o' hope to feel the heart beatin. But the last sob was sobbed-and then he looked up in my face, and glowered at me like ane demented, and asked me wha I was, and if it was me that had killed William. A' the time our knees were dabbled in the bluid-and a thousan' ghaistly lichts, and shapes, and faces, wavered afore my een, and I was sick as death.

Tickler. What the deuce are you two talking about there; and what's the matter with the Shepherd, his face is as white as a sheet?

Shepherd. I cried out to the puir fellow that I was the Ettrick Shepherd, and wud tak him to Eltrive, awa frae a' the horrors o' Hell and Satan. And then I thocht, “Oh, dear !— oh, dear!—what wud I gie if this were but a bluidy dream!" -And thank God, a dream it was, for I brake through the trammels o' sleep wi' a groan, and a shriek, and a shiver, and a shudder, and a yell,—and a happy man was I to see the sweet calm moon in the midnight lift, and to hear the murmur o' the Yarrow glidin awa through the silent beauty o' reposin Nature.

EDINBURGH LADIES.

131

North. James, you have affected me-but let us think no more about it.-Have you heard Master Aspull,1 James?

Shepherd. Weel, as sure's ony thing, Mr North, yon's a maist extraordinar prodigy. He's music personified. His entire soul is in his ear, and yon wee bit inspired hauns o' his mysteriously execute the bidding o' the genius within, and at aince delight and astonish.

North. Why don't young ladies perform on the piano better than they usually do, think ye, James? Do you generally admire their singing?

Shepherd. Me admire the singing o' the Edinburgh leddies? They hae neither taste nor feeling-all taucht singers, after some parteclar moddle for ilk parteclar tune, which they stick to like grim death, without e'er askin questions, like a parcel o' mockin-birds. Nae bursts o' native feeling, inspired at the moment by some turn in the strain-nae sudden pawthos to bring the tear into your ee-nae lively liltin awa like a rising laverock, when the hymn should brighten in the sunshine o' the soul's expanding joy-nae plaintive pause, maist like a faint, and then a dying away o' the life o' soun' into a happy and a holy death-but everlastingly the same see-sawthe same stap at the foot o' the hill, and the same scamper up— the same helter-skelter across the flat, and the same cautious ridin down the stony declivities. In short, their singing's perfectly tiresome, and gin it werena that I ken them itherwise, I should believe that they had nane o' them ony souls!

Tickler. Of all the staring troopers on the street I ever beheld in any metropolis, the Edinburgh ladies (old, young, and middle-aged) are the most barefaced and shameless. Is there anything remarkable in my appearance?

Shepherd. Naething ava, except your hicht and handsomeness, your fine ruddy cheeks and silvery locks—a star seen through a snow-cloud.

Tickler. All their eyes, black, blue, grey, and green, from the small blear to the great goggle, are thrust into my face. Some ladies look as they threatened to bite me,-others are only hindered, by the power of a good early education, from falling on my neck and kissing me,-some, with open mouths, are lost in astonishment, and forgetting all the world but me, capsize the dandies,-others go mincing by with suppressed

1 Master Aspull, a musical phenomenon of that period.

132

SHOOTING THE ELEPHANT.

titter or leering laugh-but not one of them all (and I mention the fact not in spite, but the deepest humility) passes by without making me the sole object of her ken. I wish to have the cause of all this explained—what have I said?—what have I done?—or am I, in good truth, the most extraordinarylooking man that has yet appeared in the world, and doomed to universal wonder all the days of my life?

Shepherd. Baith pairties are to blame. You see, Mr Tickler, you haud your head, as I observed, ower heigh-nane better entitled to do sae, and I've seen you mysel, wi' a lang hatcrape hanging down your back, when you wasna in murnins,that surtout is very yelegant, but no common on a man o' sixty,—you never walk slower than sax miles an hour, and that stick or cane o' yours is kenspeckle in a crowd, and would gie a clour1 on a man's head aneuch to produce a phrenological faculty. A' thae things pitten thegither, and ithers besides, justifies the leddies, to a certain extent, o' their glowerin; but still they're muckle to blame, for naething can justify impudence and immodesty, and a man canna help ha'in curious thochts about a woman whom he never saw atween the een afore, when she comes glowerin up to his very nose, wi' her handkerchief in her hand, just like a hizzie gaun to hang up a clout on a peg; and you hae to jump backwards to save yourselves frae rinnin foul o' ane anither, like twa cutters o' Leith smacks in the Roads.

North. I am so seldom on the streets, that I am no judge of the charges you bring against my fair towns-women. I love them with such a fatherly affection, that they may stare at me without offence; for I shall put it all down to the credit of my crutches.

Mullion. I should like to have been t'other day at the shooting of the elephant.

3

1 Clour-a lump raised by a blow.

2 Glowering-staring.

3 His death is thus recorded in the monthly obituary :-" At his lodgings over Exeter Change, in his twenty-fourth year, Chuny!" Chuny's case gave rise to much discussion in the public prints, both before and after his decease. He was naturally of a warm temperament, and this, aggravated by his long confinement, had rendered him very irritable and dangerous. Cooling medicine, to the extent of a hundredweight of Epsom salts as an ordinary dose, had been administered in vain. Change of air, and new objects of interest, might perhaps have effected a cure, or at least have alleviated the more urgent symptoms; but an insurmountable difficulty presented itself. Chuny had been got "up stairs" when his proportions were comparatively slender; but

Tickler. Well, I should not. The murder read hideously. His death was necessary-but it was bunglingly inflicted.

North. I could not but be amused with my friend Brookes' letter in the newspapers, assuring the public that he had not eat soup made of part of the putrid elephant. A surgeon may do anything of that sort with impunity-and Brookes is a first-rate surgeon.

Tickler. I had no idea he was so sensitive. Elephant-feet are excellent.-Experto crede Roberto.

Shepherd. Tidbits! How are they dressed, Mr Tickler? Like sheep's-head and trotters, I presume. A capital dish for a Sabbath dinner, elephant-head and trotters. How mony could dine aff't?

Tickler. What a prime MART,' James?

Shepherd. What black puddins!—and oh! what tripe! Only think o' the leddy's hood and monyplies! Then the marrow-banes! A' fu', it seems, o' a sort o' fluid, doubtless strang, and sappy, and esculent, and to be eaten wi' bread and a spoon. I'm gettin hungry-I've a great likin for wild beasts. Oh man! gin we had but wolves in Scotland !

Tickler. Why, they would make you shepherds attend a little better to your own business. How could you visit Edinburgh and Ambrose, if there were wolves in the Forest?

Shepherd. I wadna grudge a score o' lambs in the yearfor the wolves would only raise the price o' butcher's meat— they would do nae harm to the kintra. What grand sport, houndin the wolves in singles, or pairs, or flocks, up yonder about Loch Skene!

Tickler. What think you of a few tigers, James?

Shepherd. The royal Bengal Teegger is no indigenous in Scotland, as the wolves was in ancient times; and that's ae reason against wushin to hae him amang us. Let the Alien his bulk had increased so enormously during his imprisonment, that he could not have been got down again without taking down several houses. Fears were entertained that, in one of his obstreperous moods, he would demolish his own cage, and then proceed to liberate the lions and tigers in the adjoining apartments. The Strand became more formidable than an Indian jungle, and the only alternative was to put Chuny to death in the most summary way possible. A platoon of musketeers was drawn up against him in battle array, I am not aware that artillery was employed on the occasion; but it required one hundred and fifty bullets to despatch him. His dissection was itself a nine days' wonder.

1 Mart-an ox killed at Martinmas, and salted for winter provision.