like Lacie Dacre, I should be glad to know, for chaunting bousing-ballads, and telling merry adventures? He's the wildest of all our border spirits, and his exploits with the brandycup and the ale-flagon have obtained him the name of Allan-a-Maut; a scrap of an old-world song, Sir, with which young Spend-pelf ever commences and concludes his merriment. I have said my worst of the lad-I believe he's a kind-hearted chield, and as true to his word as the cup is to his lip. And now listen to his story, for I'll warrant it a queer one. And as she concluded, he commenced.

"That song," said the youth, "rude and uncouth though it seems, pitches, as a musician would say, the natural tone or key of the tale I have to tell; it was far from unwise in me to sing it; and so with this explanation I will proceed. It happened some summers ago, as I was returning, during the grey of the morning, from a love tryste in a green glen on the banks of Annan water, I fell into a kind of reverie; and what should the subject of it be, but the many attachments my heart had formed among the maidens, and the very limited requital the law allows one to make to so many sweet and gentle creatures. My spirit was greatly perturbed, as ye may guess, with this sorrowful subject; and a thick mist, which the coming sun seemed unable to dispel, aided me in totally mistaking my way; and I could not well mistake it further, for I found myself in a region with which I had formed no previous acquaintance: I had wandered into a brown and desolate heath, the mist rolled away in heavy wreaths before me, and followed close on my heels, with the diligence of an evil spirit.

"All hill and woodland mark, our usual country guides, were obscured, and I strayed on till I came to the banks of a moorland brook, stained by the soil through which it passed, till it flowed the colour of the brown est brandy. The tenants of this desart stream partook of the congenial nature of the region-they were not of that swift and silver-speckled sort described by the pastoral versemakers, but of a dull and dark mottled kind, and so lean and haggard as to be wholly unworthy of a fisher's

bait. I caught one under the mossy bank, and returned it again to the stream as unfit for food. I saw no living thing in my course across this desart; the heron, that beautiful and solitary bird, rejected it for a haunt; and even the wild moorfowl, which in the fowler's proverb feeds on the heather top, sought neither food nor shelter amid the brown and dreary wilderness.

"I came at last to a thick and gloomy plantation of Scotch firs, which, varying the bleak desolation of the moor, gave me the assurance that some thirty years before, the hand of man had been busied in the region. A fence of loose stone, surmounted by a rude cope or cornice of rough sharp rock, presented an ef fectual barrier to sheep and even deer. The latter animals will overleap a high wall of firm masonry, but turn back from a very slender impediment which threatens insecure footing.

"The soil had in many places proved ungenial to Scotch firs, the hardiest of all forest trees; they grew in dwarfish and stunted clumps, and exceeded not the altitude of ordinary shrubs. In passing along the side of the fence, I came to a hollow, where the masses of high green bracken betokened a richer soil. Here the trees, striking deep into the mossy loam, towered up into a beautiful and extensive grove, relieved in their gloomy appearance by the wild cherry and mountain ash, at that time covered with bloom. Behind me, the moor spread out high and uneven, full of quagmires and pits, out of which the peasants of Annan-vale cut peats for fuel.

"I observed, winding through the field of bracken, a kind of trodden way, resembling a hare-road, which, passing over the fence, by the removal of the cope-stone, dived directly into the bosom of the wood. The path too seemed marked with men's feet; and with the hope of its leading me to some human abode, I entered the plantation. The wood, fair and open at first, became thick and difficult; the road too grew sinuous and perplexing; and I was compelled to pull aside the thick masses of boughs, and, gliding gently into the aperture, make the best of my way by sleight and stratagem.

"I had proceeded in this way nearly half a mile, when I came to the foot of one of those vast rocks which tower up so abrupt and unexpectedly on many of the Scottish heaths. It seemed a pile of prodigious stones huddled rudely together in the careless haste of creation, rather than a regular rock. Deep chasms, and openings resembling caves, were visible in many places, shagged round the entrance with heath-berry; and where the plant that bears this delicious fruit failed to grow, the hardier ivy took root, and with little nourishment shot up into small round masses, called fairy-seats by the peasantry. At the foot of the precipice, some hundreds of high and shivered stones stood on end, like a Druidic grove, but in seven-fold con fusion, and here and there a fir inserted in the cliffs of the rock struggled for life; while the ivy, shooting its stems to the summit of the crag, shook down a profusion of green ten drils, and crawled along the ground again, till the mossy soil, which bubbled up water at every step, arrested the march of the beautiful evergreen. Around the crag, a circle of spruce firs was planted; while high over the whole the rock rose savage and grey, and gave the eagles, which not infrequently visited its summit, a view over some of the fairest pasture lands in Annandale.

"The desolation of the place was heightened by the absence of living water-the voice of the brook, which lends the tongue of life to many a dreary place. A little puddle of brown moorish water supplied the place of a fountain; around its margin the bones of hares and fowls were strewn ; while in a recess in the rock, the fox had sought a lair, and heaped it high with wool and feathers. But the proverbial lord of craft and cunning had for some time forsaken this once favourite abode; the presence of man had intruded on his wild domain, and driven him to the neighbouring mountains.

"I climbed to the summit of the rock, and gazed down the vale of Annan as far as the sea of Solway, and westward as far as the green hills of Nithsdale. To enable me more pleasantly to enjoy the beauty of a scene which Turner, or Callcott, or Dewint, would love to consecrate,

I proceeded to discuss the merits of some ewe-milk cheese, made for me by the lily-white hand of Jessie Johnstone, of Snipeflosh; and the gift of the maiden began to vanish before the sharp-set perseverance of youth. The sun too, dispelling the fog, gleamed over the green heads of the groves in all his summer glory, and I proceeded to examine how I might find out the way to Ae water, to the dwelling of bonnie Bess Dinwoodie.

"While I sat gazing about me, I observed a thin and curling line of smoke ascending from the base of the crag; it rose up thicker and blacker, and, wafted by the wind, gushed against my face; I never felt a vapour so strange and offensive. As I proceeded to consider the various kinds of exhalations which arise from forest or fen, I saw a large and hungry dog come out of the wood. It uttered a cry of discovery, half howl and half bark, and coming near, seemed willing to leap at my throat. I threw it a piece of cheese; it caught and devoured it, and renewed its clamour. It was soon joined, to my utter dismay, by a human being. I never beheld a man with a look so startled and threatening. He was tall and strong-built, with hair long and matted, the colour of ashes, while his eyes, large, and staring, and raw, looked, as Lancie Lauborde the tailor said, like scored collops faced with red plush.'

"He addressed me in a tone that in nowise redeemed his savage appearance. 'Weel met, quoth the wolf to the fox; weel met, my crafty lad: so ye have found out the bonnie bee-byke at last, as the boy said when he thrust his hand into the adder's den. I maun ken more about ye, my lad; so tell me thy tale cleverly; else, I swear by the metal worm through which my precious drink dribbles, I will feast the fox and her five cubs on thy spool-bane. On my conscience, lad, as ye brew, so shall ye drink; and that's o'er fair a law for a gauger.' What this depraved being meant by his mysterious language, and what calling he followed, were alike matters of conjecture; his manner was certainly hostile and threatening. I told him I was passing towards the vale of Ae, and had lost my way in the mist

Lost your way in the mist, and found the way ye were seeking for, my wylie lad, I'll warrant; but I shall come at the bare truth presently.' So saying, he laid the flap of his shaggy coat aside, and, showing me a brace of pistols, and the hilt of a dirk stuck in a belt of rough leather, motioned me to follow him.

"Resistance was hopeless; we descended from the rock by a winding and secret way, concealed among the ivy, and the branches of a spreading spruce fir. This brought us to a rude structure, resembling a shepherd's shed, half cavern and half building, and nearly hidden under the involving branches of two luxuriant firs. My guide half pushed me into this unpromising abode; a miserable hovel, loathsome and foul, and filled with a thick and noisome vapour. I was greeted on my entrance by a squat, thick-set, and squalid being, who, starting up from a couch of straw, exclaimed, Wha in the fiend's name's this ye have driven into our bit den of refuge in the desart, as ane wad drive a ratton into a trap? Deil drown me in a strong distillation, and that's an enviable death, if this lad's no a stripling exciseman, whelped in our unhappy land by the evil spirits of the government. If he's a gauger, take ye the spade and dig, and I'll take the sword and strike; for he shall never craw day again, else my name's nae mair Jock Mackcleg.' And the wretch, as he spoke, proceeded to sharpen an old sword on the strake of a scythe.

6

'Hooly, man, hooly with thy bit of rusty airn,' said his companion, ye're no sae handy with it when its warse needed, Jock, ye ken. I shall allow the young lad to live, be he devil, or be he gauger, and that's meikle waur, were it only that he might partake of that glorious spirit which I call stupify,' but which wiser Jock Mackcleg christened heart's-blood,' and learn of what a princely beverage he would deprive this poor taxed and bleeding land.' It happened well for me that these two wretches, though born for each other's society, like boson bones, and necessary to each other in their detestable pursuits as the bark is to the bush, chose to be of different opinions respecting the mode of ma

naging me, and thus John Mackcleg expressed his dissent from his more moderate as well as powerful associate. And so he's to live and taste of the heart's blood!' deil turn him into our distilling-worm first, that the liquid consolation the gauger tribe seek to deprive us of may run reeking through him. Ah, Mungo Macubin, ye're soft, ye're soft; ye would give the supervisor himself our hained drops of distillery dew; and for fear he should drop into a ditch, ye would carry him hame. I'll tell ye what were ye Mungo Macubin seven times told, I will cease to be longer conjunct and several with you; else may I be whipt through the lang burgh of Lochmaben, with the halter of a gauger's horse.' And still growling out anger, which he dared not more openly express, he threw himself down on a litter bed, while his companion, with a look of scorn, answered."Thou predestined blockhead, am I a blind stabber behind backs in the dark, like thyself? Am I to harm the white skin of this young raw haspen of a lad, unless I ken why and wherefore? Spill his sweet life indeed! Faith, if this lad threatened ye with six inches of cauld steel in his hand, though water five fathoms deep and seven mile wide divided ye, ye would be less free of your threats. So lie still there, and put thy bonnet on thy bald scalp, from which whiskey has scalded the hair: Aye, that will do. Now sit down, my wandering man of the mist, let me have a look at thee; but first hold this cup of stupify' to thy head. Faith, my birkie, if I thought ye kenn'd the might of whiskey by mathematical measuring, or any other dangerous government mode of ascertaining spiritual strength, I'd make ye swallow yere gauging sticks. So sit down; else, by the spirit of malt, and the heart of corn, I will make thee obedient.'

"I sat down on an empty cask, and holding in my hand a cup full of the hot and untasted liquor, which my entertainers were busied in preparing, I could not but give a few hurried glances round this wretched lodge in the wilderness. The cabin itself seemed more the creation of distempered or intoxicated intellects, than the work of consideration and

sobriety. At the entrance of a kind of cavern in the rock, a rude enclosure of stone was raised, the whole covered over with boughs and turf, with an opening in the side capable of admitting one person at a time. The floor was bedded with rushes and bracken, but trodden into mire, and moistened with a liquor of a flavour so detestable that I felt half suffocated; while the steam of a boiling cauldron, mingling with the bitter smoke of green fir-wood, eddied round and round, and then gushed out into the morning air through the aperture by which I entered. In the cavern itself, I observed a fire glimmering, and something of the shape of a human being stretched motionless before it. This personage was clad in a garb of rough sheep-skin, the wool shorn, or rather singed close, and an old fur cap slouched over his ears, while his feet, wholly bare, and nearly sootblack, were heated among the warm ashes which he raked from the cauldron fire. He lay on his belly, supporting his head with his hands; and about all his person nothing was white but the white of his eye. Beside him stood what seemed an old tobacco-box; he dipped it frequently into a pail of liquor; and, each time he carried it to his head, a strong smell of whiskey was diffused over the place.

"On the right hand of this menial drudge, lay the person of John Mackcleg: an old Sanquhar rug interposed between him and the foul litter below; a small cask, the spiggot of which was worn by frequent use, stood within reach; while a newdrained cup lay at his head, with a crust of bread beside it. On the other side sat Mungo Macubin, on a seat covered with a sheep-skin; and, compared to his debased and brutish companions, he seemed a spirit of light. In spite of his disordered locks, and the habitual intoxication in which his eyes swam, his look was inviting, and even commanding. Something of better days and brighter hopes appeared about him. But in his eye frequently glimmered that transient and equivocal light, suspicious and fierce, which, influenced by drink, and inflamed by contradiction, rendered him an insecure companion. A sword lay on a shelf beside him, with several tattered

books; a fish-spear, a fishing-rod, a fowling-piece, and a fiddle, tuned perhaps during the delirium of drink, hung there with its disordered strings. I observed too the machinery of a wooden clock, the labour, I afterwards learned, of his knife; together with several spoons, and cups of sycamore, which he wanted the pa tience rather than the skill to finish. The notice which I took of this part of the establishment seemed far from displeasing to the proprietor.

"Around the shealing stood kegs and vessels for containing liquor, all of portable dimensions, such as a man might readily carry; and I wanted not this to convince me that a whiskey-still of considerable magnitude was busy in the bosom of this wilderness. In the middle of the floor stood a rude table, the top of which had belonged to some neighbouring orchard, and still threatened in large letters the penalties of traps and guns to nightly depredators. It was swimming with liquor, and strewn with broken cups; and in the midst of the whole lay several of those popular publications which preach up the equality of human intellect and estate, and recommend, along with a general division of worldly goods, a more tolerant system of intercourse between the sexes. No doubt the excellent authors of those works would regard this appearance of their labours amid the Caledonian desart as a certain proof of fame; they would seek more than ever to attract men's affections to a more flexible system of morality; to awaken a kind of devotion which affords more scope to the natural passions of the multitude, and to wean human regard from that austere doctrine which inculcates selfdenial, and sundry other such unreasonable matters. On a paper which contained a printed list of rewards given by government, to men who had laboured for the good of their country, I observed a calculation of the proceeds of illicit distillations; while on the floor lay the skin of a fat wether recently killed, and which still bore the mark of a neighbouring farmer, whose consent to this appropriation my companions, in the full relish of liberty, had not thought it necessary to obtain.

“During this examination, the eye of John Mackcleg dwelt upon all my