VOCAL MUSIC.

pleased with any one's singing as with Miss Noel's.

169

She is

a sweet, gentle, modest creature, and her pipe has both power

and pathos.

Shepherd. She's just ane o' the verra best singers I ever heard in a' my life-and the proof o't is, that although an English lassie, she can sing sweetly a Scottish sang. That tries the heart at ance, you see, Mr North; and unless the singer be innocent and amiable, and fu' o' natural sensibility, such as a faither wad like in his ain dochter, she needna try ane o' our lyrics. Here's Miss Noel's health, and a' that's gude to her!

North. Vocal music, James, when good, how divine! Your own fair young daughter sitting with her arm on your knee, and looking up in her old father's face, while her innocent lips distil sounds that melt into his yearning heart, and her blue eyes fill with happy tears under the pensive charm of her own melody!

Shepherd. I canna conceive a purer happiness. O man, Mr North, my dear, dear sir, why dinna, why wunna ye marry? You that are sae familiar in imagination wi' the haill range o' a' pawrents' thochts, and feelings.-Oh! why, why sudna ye marry

?

North. James-look on this crutch-that slit shoe-these chalk-stoned fingers-hear that short cat-cough

Shepherd. Deil the fears. Mony a young woman wad loup at the offer. Ye hae that in your ee, sir, that takes a woman's heart. And then, Fame, Fame, Fame, that's the idol they worship upon their knees-witness the Duke o' Wellington and mony ithers.

North. It would kill me quite to be refused.

Shepherd. Refused! There's no a woman, either maid or widow, in a' Scotland, that's reached the years o' understandin, that wad refuse you. The world wad think her mad. I ken mair than a dizzen, no out o' their teens yet, that's dyin for you.-Isna that true, Mr Tickler?

Tickler. True!-Ay, true as Waterton on the Cayman.2 But North is vain enough already of his empiry over the fair sex- -too much so, indeed, I fear, ever to confine himself

1 One of the Edinburgh theatrical company, afterwards Mrs Bushe.

2 Mr Waterton's equestrian exploits on the back of the crocodile, as narrated by him in his "Wanderings," are not so incredible when it is considered that the animal had a hook through its jaws, and that half-a-dozen Indians were hauling at the rope attached to it.

within the narrow limits of the conjugal state. He's like the air, a chartered libertine."

66

Shepherd. Think shame o' yoursel, Mr Tickler. That never was Mr North's character, even in lusty youth-head. Ma faith, he was ower muckle o' a man. Open bosoms werena the treasures he coveted-in his estimation no worth the riflin. He has had, beyond a' doubt, his ain dear secret, sighin, and sabbin hours, when there were nae starnies in heaven, but when twa lampin een, far mair beautifu' than them, were close upon him, wi' their large liquid lustre, till his gazing soul overflowed with unendurable bliss. When

North. Good heavens, James, remember those secrets were confided to you at the Confessional!

Shepherd. They are safe as gin they were my ain, Mr North. How's the Ludge1 looking this spring?

North. In great beauty. The garden-wall you abused so three years ago is now one blush of blossoms. What you called the "wee pookit shrubs," now form a balmy wilderness, populous with bees and birds-all the gravel-walks are now overshadowed with the cool dimness of perpetual twilight. Ten yards off you cannot see the house-only its rounded chimneys-and, indeed, on a chosen day of cloudless sunshine, yet unsultry air, you might imagine yourself beneath the skies of Italy, and in the neighbourhood of Rome. Tickler. Of Modern Athens, if you please,

sir.

Shepherd. Just o' Auld Reekie, gin you like. Are the Fife hens layin?

66

North. Yes, James-and Tapitoury is sitting.

Shepherd. That's richt. Weel, o' a' the how-towdies I ever ate, yon species is the maist truly gigantic. I could hae taen my Bible-oath that they were turkeys. Then I thocht, surely they maun be capons; " but when I howked into the inside o' ane o' them, and brought out a spoonfu' o' yellow eggs, frae the size o' a pepper-corn to that o' a boy's bools, and up to the bulk o' a ba' o' thread, thinks I to mysel, "sure aneuch they are hens," and close upon the layin. Maist a pity to kill them!

North. James, you shall have a dozen eggs to set, and future ages will wonder at the poultry of the Forest. Did you ever see a capercailzie?

Shepherd. Never. They have been extinct in Scotland for

1 See ante, p. 23, note.

2 Bools-marbles.

POULTRY.-POACHERS.

171

fifty years. But the truth is, Mr North, that all domesticated fowl would live brawly if turned out into the wilds and woods. They might lose in size, but they would gain in sweetnessa wild sweetness-caught frae leaves and heather-berries, and the products o' desert places, that are blooming like the rose. A tame turkey wad be a wild ane in sax months; and oh, sir! it wad be gran' sport to see and hear a great big bubbly-jock' gettin on the wing in a wood, wi' a loud gobble, gobble, gobble, redder than ordinar in the face, and the ugly feet o' him danglin aneath his heavy hinder-end, till the hail brought him down with a thud and a squelch amang the astonished pointers !

North. I have not taken a game certificate this year, James. Indeed

Shepherd. You're just becomin perfectly useless a'thegither, Mr North; and then look at the Magazine-you would seem no to hae taen out a game certificate there either—and there are poachers on the manor.

North. I never cut up anybody nowadays-for old age, James, like an intimate knowledge of the Fine Arts-“Emollit mores nec sinit esse feros."

2

3

Shepherd. You're far ower good-natured, Mr North; and the corbies, thinkin there's nae gun about the house, or, at least, nae pouther and lead, are beginnin to come croakin close in upon the premises wi' their ugly thrapples, the foul carrion! You should lay brown Bess ower the garden-dike, and send the hail into their brains for them, and then hing the brutes up by the heels frae a stab, wi' their bloody beaks downmost, till a' the tribe keep aloof in their dark neuks frae the smell o' kindred corruption; or gin you wad only gie me the gun

North. Poo-poo-James-the vermin murder one another; and nothing, you know, is more common than to come upon a poor emaciated dying devil in a ditch, surrounded by birds of the same nest, who keep hopping about at some little distance, narrowing and narrowing the circle, as the croak of the carrion gets more hoarse and husky, till they close in upon the famished fowl in his last blindness, making prey of a carcass that is hardly worth tearing in pieces, a fleshless bundle of fetid feathers, here and there bedabbled with thin blood, changed almost into water by that alchemist-Hunger.

1 Bubbly-jock-turkey-cock.

2 Corbies-crows. 3 Thrapple-windpipe.

172

COURSING.-THE PAINS OF PRINT.

Tickler. Were the hares numerous in the Forest last season, James?

Shepherd. Just atween the twa. I gripped about a hunder and forty wi' the grews. I never recollect them rin stronger -perfec witches and warlocks. What for cam ye never

out?

Tickler. I have given up the sports of the field, too, James -even angling itself.

Shepherd. Weel, I get fonder and fonder o' grewin every season. My heart loups when Poossie starts frae the rushes wi' her lang hornlike lugs and cockit fud, the slut, and before she sees the dowgs, keeps ganging rather leisurely up the knowe-till catching a glimpse o' Claverse, doun drap her lugs a' at ance, and laying her belly to the brae, awa she flees, Claverse turning her a thousand times, till, wi' a desperate spang, he flings himsel on her open-mouthed—a caterwaulin as o' weans greetin for sook at midnight, and then a's husht, and puir Poossie dead as a herring.

North. You seem melancholy, Tickler-a penny for your thoughts.

Tickler. I am depressed under the weight of an unwritten article. That everlasting Magazine of yours embitters my existence. O, that there were but one month in the year without a Blackwood!

Shepherd. Or rather a year in ane's life without it, that a body micht hae leisure to prepare for anither warld. Hoo the Numbers accumulate on the shelve o' ane's leebrary! I begin to think they breed. Then a dizzen or twa are maistly lyin on the drawers-head-twice as mony mair in the neuks o' rooms, up and down stairs—the servants get haud o' them in the kitchen-and ye canna open the press to tak a dram, but there's the face o' Geordy Buchanan."

Tickler. My dear Shepherd, you are a happy man in the Forest, beyond the clutches and the clack of an Editor. But here am I worried to death by devils, from the tenth to the twentieth of every month. I wish I was dead.

Shepherd. You dinna wush ony sic thing, Mr Tickler. That appeteet o' yours is worth five thousan' a-year. O man! it would be a sair pity to dee wi' sic an appeteet! Tell me about the Haggis-Feast.

1 See ante, p. 27, note 2.

Tickler. A dozen of us entered our Haggises for a sweepstakes-and the match was decided at worthy Mrs Fergusson's, High Street. My Haggis (they were all made, either by our wives or cooks, at our respective places of abode) ran second to Meg Dods's.' The Director-general's (which was what sporting men would have called a roarer) came in third -none of the others were placed.

2

Shepherd. Did ony accident happen amang the Haggises? I see by your face that ane at least amang the dizzen played the deevil. I recollec ance the awfu'est scene wi' a Haggis, in auld Mr Laidlaw's house. It was a great muckle big ane, answering to Robert Burns's description, wi' its hurdies like twa distant hills, and occupied the centre o' the table, round whilk sat about a score o' lads and lasses. The auld man had shut his een to ask a blessing, when some evil speerit put it into my head to gie the bag a slit wi' my gully. Like water on the breakin o'a dam, out rushed, in an instantawneous overflow, the inside o' the great chieftain o' the Pudding race, and the women-folk brak out into sic a shriek, that the master thocht somebody had drapped down dead. Meanwhile, its contents didna stop at the edge o' the table, but gaed ower wi' a sclutter upon the lads' breeks and the lasses' petticoats, burnin the wearers to the bane; for what's hetter than a haggis?

Tickler. Nothing on this side of the grave.

5

Shepherd. What a skirlin! And then a' the collies began yelpin and youffin, for some o' them had their tauted hips scalded, and ithers o' them couldna see for the stew that was rinnin down their chafts. Glee'd Shooshy Dagleish fell a' her length in the thickest part o' the inundation, wi' lang Tommy Potts aboon her, and we thocht they would never hae foun' their feet again, for the floor was as sliddery as ice— and

North. Now, James, were you to write that down, and give it to the world in a book, it would be called coarse.

Shepherd. Nae doubt. Everything nat'ral, and easy, and true, is ca'd coorse-as I think I hae observed afore noo in 1 Mrs Johnston, author of many excellent tales and novels, was the compiler of the standard cookery-book known as Meg Dods'.

2 This Mr Laidlaw was the father of William Laidlaw, Sir Walter Scott's friend and steward. 3 Gully-large pocket-knife. 6 Glee'd-squinting.

4 Skirlin-shrieking.

5 Tauted-matted.