my goodman and me these twentyseven summers, is half such a wily loon as thyself. A night's lodging ye need never ask at Airnaumrie. And yet it would be a sore matter to my conscience to turn out a face so young and so well faured, to the bensel of the midnight blast." And away the old lady walked, and left me to arrange the treasures of my pack at my leisure. Her words were still ringing in my ears, when an old man, dressed in the antique Scottish fashion-a gray plaid wound about his bosom, a broad westland bonnet on his head, which shaded, but did not conceal, a few shining white hairs, and with a long white staff in his hand, came up, and addressed me :-" Gather up thy books and thy baubles, young man; this is not the time to spread out these worldly toys to the eyes of human infirmity. Gather them together, and cast them into that brook, and follow me. Alas!" said the old man, touching my treasures with the end of his staff, "here are gauds for our young and our rosie madams, -bosombusks, brow-snoods, and shining brooches for ensnaring the eyes of youth. I tell thee, young man, woman will fall soon enough from her bright station by her own infirmities, without thy helping hand to pluck her down. Much do I fear thou hast been disposing of sundry of thy snares to the vain old dame of Airnaumrie. She is half saint and half sinner; and the thoughts of her giddy youth are still too strong for her gray hairs: seest thou not that she carries the book of redemption in her hand, when she should bear it in her head? But she gleaned her scanty knowledge on an Erastian field among the Egyptian stubble. Ah! had she been tightly targed by a sound professor on the Proof Catechism, she had not needed that printed auxiliary under her arm. But I waste precious time on an unprofiting youth. I hasten whither I am called,-for patronage, with its armed hand, will give the kirk of Galloway a sad stroke to-day, if there be no blessed interposition." And my male followed my female monitor, leaving me to wonder what all this religious bustle and preparation might mean. I was about to follow, when loud talk, and louder

laughter, came towards me through the green avenue of a neighbouring wood. A bevy of lads and lasses in holiday clothes, with books of devotion in their hands, soon appeared; and they were not slack in indulging themselves in week-day merriment. "A pretty whig, indeed!" said a handsome girl with brown locks, and coats kilted half-way up a pair of very white legs; "a pretty whig, indeed!-I'll tell thee, lad, thou'lt never be the shining star in the firmament thy aunt speaks of when she prays. I have seen a lad with as much grace in his eye as thyself, endure a sore sermon by himself when the kirk should have scaled.” "And I have seen,' retorted the swain, "as great a marvel as a pair of white legs, rosie lips, and mischievous eyes, making as wise a man as myself pay dear for an hour's daffin.” "Daffin," said the maiden, laughing till the woods rung again; "daffin will be scant when a lass seeks for't with such a long black world's wonder as thee. It sets thy mother's oldest son well to speak of daffin." "I have climbed a higher tree, and harried a richer nest," murmured the plowman: "but what, in the name of patronage, have we here? Here's an abstract personification, as somebody called John Gondie the Cameronian, of old Willie Mackfen the pedlar-in the days of his youth." So saying, a crowd of lads and lasses surrounded my pack and me, and proceeded to examine and comment on my commodities, with an absence of ceremony which would have vexed even a veteran traveller. "As I shall answer for it," said one youth, "here's the very snood Jenny Birkwhistle lost amang Andrew Lorrance's broom." "And I protest," retorted the maiden, justly offended at this allusion to the emblem of maidenhood, "I protest, here's the wisest of all printed things—even A Groat's Worth of Wit for a Penny, which thy mother longed to read ere she was lightened of Gowk Gabriel. Thy father has much to answer for, when a penny would have made a wiseman of his haveral." A loud laugh told that truth was mingled with the ready wit of the maiden. Utter ruin seemed to wait on my affairs, when a woman, with a sour sharp visage, and a tongue that rang

like a steel hammer on a smith's anvil, came up, and interposed. "Ye utterly castaway and graceless creatures, are ye making godless mirth on a green hill side?" said she, stretching forth her hands, garnished with long finger-nails, over the crowd-like a hawk over a brood of chickens, "is not this the day when patronage seeks to be mighty, and will prevail. Put yourselves, therefore, in array. The preaching man of Belial, with his red dragons, even now approaches the afflicted kirk of Bleeding-Heart. Have ye not heard how they threaten to cast the cope-stone of the kirk into the deep sink, where our forefathers of yore threw the lady of Babylon, and her painted and mitred minions? But it is ever this way. Ye would barter the soul's welfare for the body's folly. Ah! what would Hezekiah Graneaway, thy devout grandfather, say, were he to see his descendant, on a day of trial like this, standing making mouths at a poor packman-lad, with a bevy of petticoated temptresses around him? Get along, I say, lest I tear these curled love-locks from thy temples. And as for thee, thou young moneychanger thou dealer in maiden trickery and idle gauds, knowest thou not that this is ORDINATION DAY-so buckle up thy merchandize, and follow. Verily, none can tell from whose hand the blow shall come this day, that will save us from the sinful compliance with that offspring of old Mahoun, even patronage." was glad of any pretext for withdrawing my goods from the hands of my unwelcome visitors; so I huddled them together, secured them with the lock, and followed the zealous dame, who, with a proud look, walked down the hill, to unite herself to a multitude of all ranks and sexes, which the placing of the parish miuister had collected together.

The place where this multitude of motley beliefs and feelings had assembled, was one of singular beauty. At the bottom of a woody glen, the margin of a beautiful lake, and the foot of a high green mountain, with the sea of Solway seen rolling and sparkling in the distance, stood a populous and straggling village, through which a clear stream, and a paved road, winded side by side. Each

house had its garden behind, and a bare-headed progeny running wild about the banks of the rivulet; beside which, many old men and matrons, seated according to their convenience, enjoyed the light of the sun, and the sweetness of the summer air. At the eastern extremity of the village, a noble religious ruin, in the purest style of the Saxons, raised its shattered towers and minarets far above all other buildings; while the wall-flowers, shooting forth in the spring at every joint and crevice, perfumed the air for several roods around. The buttresses, and exterior auxiliary walls, were covered with a thick tapestry of ivy; which, with its close-clinging and smooth shining leaf, resembled a covering of velvet. One bell, which tradition declares to be of pure silver, remained on the top of one of the highest turrets, beyond the reach of man. It is never rung, save by a violent storm; and its ringing is reckoned ominous-deaths at land, and drownings at sea, follow the sound of the silver bell of Bleeding-Heart Abbey. Innumerable swarms of pigeons and daws shared the upper region of the ruin among them, and built and brought forth their young in the deserted niches of saints, and the holes from which corbals of carved wood had supported the painted ceiling. At the very foot of this majestic edifice, stood the parish kirk, built in utter contempt of the beautiful proportions of its ancient neighbour; and for the purpose, perhaps, of proving in how mean a sanctuary the pure and stern devotion of the Presbyterians could humble itself. Men thrash their grain, stall their horses, house their cattle, and even lodge themselves, in houses dry and comfortable-but, for religion, they erect edifices which resemble the grave: the moist clay of the floor, the dampness, and frequent droppings of water from the walls, are prime matters of satisfaction to the parish grave-digger, and preserve his spade from rust.

Into this ancient abbey, and the beautiful region around it, the whole population of the parish appeared to have poured itself, for the purpose of witnessing, and perhaps resisting the ordination of a new and obnoxious pastor, whom patronage had pro

vided for their instruction. Youths, more eager for a pleasant sight than religious controversy, had ascended into the abbey towers;-the thickpiled grave-stones of the kirk-yardeach ruined buttress-the broken altar stone, and the tops of the trees, were filled with aged or with youthful spectators. Presbyterians of the established kirk, Burghers, Antiburghers, Cameronians, and seceders of all denominations, paraded the long crooked street of the village, and whiled away the heavy time, and amused their fancy, and soothed their conscience, by splitting anew the straws scattered about by the idle wind of controversy. Something like an attempt to obstruct the entrance to the kirk appeared to have been made. The spirit of opposition had hewn down some stately trees which shaded the kirk-yard, and these, with broken ploughs and carts, were cast into the road-the kirk door itself had been nailed up, and the bell silenced by the removal of the rope. The silver bell on the abbey alone, swept by a sudden wind, gave one gentle toll; and, at that moment, a loud outcry, from end to end of the village, announced the approach of the future pastor. The peasants thickened round on all sides; and some proceeded to wall up the door of the kirk with a rampart of loose stones."Let Dagon defend Dagon," said one rustic, misapplying the Scripture he quoted, while he threw the remains of the abbey altar-stone into the path." And here is the through-stone of the last abbot, Willie Bell. It makes a capital copestone to the defences-I kenn'd it by the drinking cup aside the death's nead-he liked to do penance with a stoup of wine at his elbow," said another boor, adding the broken stone to the other incumbrances. "A drinking cup! ye coof," said an old man, pressing through the crowd, "it is a sand-glass-and cut too on the head-stone of thy own grandfatherblack will be thy end for this." The boor turned away with a shudder; while the dame of Airnaumrie, with the black hood, and large Bible, exclaimed, "Take away that foul memorial of old Gomorrha Gunson. The cause can never prosper that borrows defence from that never-dogood's grave. Remove the stone, I

say, else I shall brain thee with this precious book." And she shook the religious missile at the descendant of old Gomorrha, who carried off the stone; and no farther attempt was made, after this ominous circumstance, to augment the rampart.

Amid all this stir and preparation, I had obtained but an indistinct knowledge of the cause which called into action all the grave, impatient, and turbulent spirits of the district. This was partly divulged in a conversation between two persons, to which there were many auditors. One was the male broad-bonnetted disciplinarian, who rebuked me for displaying the contents of my pack; and the other was the sour-visaged, shrill-tongued dame, who rescued my pack from the peril of pillage on the road, and with the true antique spirit of the reformed church, lent her voice to swell the clamour of controversy. Their faces were inflamed, and their voices exalted, by the rancour of mutual contradiction: and it was thus I heard the male stickler for the kirk's freedom of election express himself: "I tell thee once, woman, and I tell thee again, that the kirk of BleedingHeart there, where it stands so proud and so bonnie by the side of that auld carcase of the woman of Rome,I tell thee it shall stand empty and deserted, shall send forth on Sunday a dumb silence, and the harmony of her voice be heard no more in the land,—rather than she shall take like a bridegroom to her bosom, that sapless slip of the soul-misleading and Latin-quoting University. Instead of drinking from the pure and fresh well-head, we shall have to drink from the muddy ditch which men have dug for themselves with the spades and shovels of learning. Instead of the down-pouring of the frank and heaven-communicated spirit, we shall have the earthly spiritthe gross invention and fancy of man -a long, dull, down-come of a read sermon, which falls as seed on the ocean, and chaff on the furrowed land. Besides all this, is not this youth-this Joel Kirkpatrick, a slip or scion from the poisonous tree of patronage, that last legacy from the scarlet lady of Rome? "I say no to that-the back of my hand to that," interrupted the woman, in red

and visible wrath; "I have heard him preach, and I have profited by his prayers; he is a precious youth, and has a happy gift at unravelling the puzzled skein of controversy. He will be a fixed and a splendid star, and that ye will soon see. And here he comes, blessings upon his head; ye shall hear a sermon soon, such as has not been heard in the land, since that chosen youth, John Rutherford, preached on the text, 'I shall kiss thee with kisses of my mouth.'' "Woman, woman," said her antagonist, thou art the slipperiest of thy kind; and opposition and controversy turn thee round, even as the bush bends to the blast. To-day hast thou stood for the kirk in its ancient purity; and lo! now thou wilt take her defiled by patronage, because of that goodly youth Joel Kirkpatrick." Silence, ye fule-fowk," said a young plowman at their side, " ye'll no let me hear the sound of the soldiers' bugle; they are coming to plant the gospel with spear and with sword. I have seen many a priest placed, some with pith of the tongue, and some with the pith of malt: Black Ned, of the parish of Slokendrouth, was placed in his pulpit by the aid of the brown spirit of malt; and there the same spirit supports him still. But, on my conscience, I never saw a parson guarded to the pulpit with cold steel before. It's a sight worth seeing." A stir and a movement was now observed at the extremity of the village; and presently the helmets, and plumes, and drawn swords, of two hundred horsemen, appeared, shining and waving above the crowd. This unusual accompaniment of the ministerial functions was greeted with hissings and hootings: and the scorn and anger of the multitude burst at once into one loud yell.

The women and the children, gathering the summer dust in their hands, showered it as thick and as blinding as winter-drift on the persons of the troopers. The anger of the people did not rest here; pebbles began to be thrown, and symptoms of fiercer hostility began to manifest themselves; for many of the peasants were armed, and seemed to threaten to dispute the entrance to the kirk. In the midst of all this tumult, mounted on a little white horse, and dressed in black, rode a young man, around whom the dust ascended and descended as if agitated by a whirlwind. This was the minister. He passed on, nor looked to the right or left, but with singular meekness, and a look of sorrow and resignation, endured the tumultuous scorn of the crowd. Long before he reached the limit of the village, he seemed more a pillar of dust than a human being. "Is the kirk a dog, that thou comest against her with staves?" said one: "Or is she a besieged city, that thou bringest against her thy horsemen and thy chariots?" cried a second: "Or comest thou to slay, whom thou canst not convince ?" shouted a third: "Or dost thou come to wash thy garments in the blood of saints?" bawled a fourth: "Or to teach thy flock the exercise of the sword rather than the exercise of devotion?" yelled a fifth: "Or come ye," exclaimed a sixth-at the very limit of the human voice, " to mix the sound of the psalm with that of the trumpet, and to hear how divinity and slaughter will sound together? Others expressed their anger in hissings and hootings; while an old mendicant ballad-singer paraded, step by step with the minister, through the crowd, and sung to a licentious tune the following rustic lampoon :

1.