my foot touched one of the wires which those wary nocturnal visitants had placed in the path, and connected with a cracked bell behind the seat of their leader. I felt the touch, and heard a kind of riven clang; when out started to the door the hoary leader of the horde himself, even as a spider runs forth when a fly touches the extremest thread of her mesh. I longed to fly, but I knew flight was vain, and certainly dangerous; and so I stood unconcerned, and still gazing on the tree-tops and the unfinished tower, like any youth smitten with the desire of verse-making. The ancient gypsey looked forth on me in silence, and with caution; several round bullet heads, covered with a profusion of sooty and curled locks, soon came as auxiliaries in the scrutiny, and I had hopes they would let me depart in peace, for I heard something like a suppressed voice of command and admonition, but I was soon undeceived. In a moment a young powerful man freed himself from the grasp of the patriarch, and came darting forward on me, making bounds something like the springs of a wild cat. I saw the gleam of a dagger or a knife under the long loose sleeve of his coat. He accosted me in a harsh rough voice. ، Rab Spoolpin, deevil are ye doing here, sae far frae yere heddles;' mistaking me for the son of a Cameronian weaver, who volunteered his gift of prayer to sick and despairing maidens, and often was seen by the gypsies returning from these nocturnal visits of consolation. Out came the gypsey's dagger as he spoke, and I lifted my staff and fronted him firmly. God, sir, cast away your kibling, or may I be whuppet through the burning pit wi' the gray tail of my auld ass, if I disnae gie ye red sowen for yere wab, and that frae 'neath yere fifth rib.' I assured him I came for no harm; that I had lost my way, and was sorry for disturbing him. His wrath abated nothing. Cast down yere rung,' said he, in a voice choking with fury, or by the stars I'se shaw ye what kind o' scarlet yere best bleede's of.' I still held my staff; and he made a spring at me with his naked dagger. Though I was but seventeen I was both stout and stubborn. I presented the long and sharp iron socket of my oak staff against my assailant's naked bosom, and kept him off. The patriarch, fol

lowed by two more of the tribe, now came up; and the old man, throwing himself between us, said to my adversary in red and keen wrath, Curse yere madness-ye wad breed discord atween twa bosom banes-ye aye gang atween the sappy bark and the sweet tree-if ye gang on i̇' thae reckless gates, there'll no be a blade o' grass for our beasts, or a gray stone to lay our ain heads on, i' the wide worldClod down yere knife, or I'll burn powder under yere nose.' With a growling voice and a stormy brow, the young desperado disposed of his knife. The patriarch, looking on me for a moment, took me kindly by the hand, and said, I vow by the banes o' my forefathers-by a' my sowdering irons and ram-horn spoons, no forgetting twelve as good asses as ever pu'd grass, that this stripling is nae scent-the-sod, nae track-the-dewand thread-the-wood to that auld donard justice, Cursan Collieson-but a sonsie and sure acquaintance, even young Mark Macrabin, turned out o' haddin and hame for singing the sweet tune o' Stroudwater-Lord, lad, ye may sing what ye like for me-I'm no religious." With this comforting assurance he led me, silent and loath, to the door of his tenement, followed by his comrades, murmuring a kind of hoarse welcome to their new associate.

"Alarmed and sorrowful as I was, I could not avoid remarking the care and circumspection with which this establishment was guarded against surprise, and prepared for resistance or retreat. Not only were wires, connecting themselves with a small bell in the house, placed double across the avenue, but on the other side of the hillock an opening was made in the rampart of thick holly, large enough to allow a loaded ass to march through, and the boughs were tied back with small cords, so that, by cutting the bands, the hedge assumed in a moment its natural and impenetrable appearance. This verdant archway opened into the thickest and most inaccessible part of the forest, and in a minute all commodities likely to be reclaimed by their late owners, namely, the produce of the fold, the furrow, or the henroost, could be removed into the wood, together with two or three of the most warlike of the tribe, reducing the roving camp to a domestic look-from the hostile aspect of war,

to the harmless posture of a peace establishment. The asses, too, lay all ready, with panniers bound on their backs, ready to receive the domestic wealth of the tribe, should hasty measures be necessary.

"The patriarch conducted me into the very middle of his establishment; and there I beheld a scene of a new and a singular kind. A large fire flamed and glowed in the bottom of a turret destined to contain the future stair, and though the hour was late, wood had been heaped on with unspar ing hand. The skin of a sheep, lately separated from the fat carcase, and which bore the mark and birn of Cursan Collieson fair and legibly upon it, was hung on the wall; the skins of several hares were hung beside it; nor did I fail to observe a brace of fat turkeys, and half-a-dozen plump pullets, which but the evening before graced the innumerable roosts of the Laird of Caponcrapia, a neighbouring gentleman, eminently skilled in the whole domestic mystery of hatching, feeding, fattening, strangling, dressing and finally devouring, all denominations of carcasses that carried feathers, with the exception, I have heard, of the raven and the owl. On the floor, elevated by layers of boughs and sheaves of straw, out of which the barnman's flail had not removed the corn, for they were abstracted from a new-shorn field, were made six or eight beds, plentifully heaped with blankets, and covered with those thick and ample wool quilts, for which the moorland looms of the Sanquhar were once so celebrated. From beneath these peeped out a variety of heads, large and little, and their thick masses of sooty and curling locks were not incommoded by caps or any kind of restraint. The shining and swarthy glances, and the tawned looks, told of an uncorrupted race of gypsies; a laugh at my consternation circulated speedily from lair to lair, the lesser heads all ducking below the covers, or peeping out, as the mirth rose or subsided. The rest of the establishment presented no objects of repose, and it appeared to me that the portion of the tribe who dedicated their labours to sunshine were now in their places of slumber, while the minions of the moon were exercising their calling under the beams of their patron planets. Two brawny

VOL. VII.

and smoky personages sat beside a reeking cauldron of water, pursuing the art and calling of manufacturing ram-horn spoons. Nor did they confine their labours to the wrinkled and crooked horns of the ram; the green and transparent horns of the heifer, and the huge and darker daggers of the bull, alike demanded the application of their craft. Nor were their produc

tions confined to the tables of the farmer and the peasant, they appeared in their most laboured and delicate shapes on the sideboards of country lairds, and even barons. Others of the tribe polished and ornamented the shafts and the mouths of the spoons, but the chieftain himself was the only person present who could inlay them with silver ornaments, make a clear toned whistle in the shaft of a punch ladle, or fashion a horn into a harvest bugle. Indeed my appearance had interrupted his labours at a long and very beautiful horn which he was preparing as a present to the daughter of a neighbouring laird; it was to have a band and a mouth-piece of silver, and the name of the rural heroine was promised in addition to these embellishments. This was no common hornit was shed from the head of a living bull-no ordinary occurrence-(and it is currently credited, that a living cow's horn can cure sundry diseases); I have since heard the damsel wind it long and loudly myself; with the same horn she cracked the collar-bone of a lad when he first made love to her, and said, " Him that marries me shall blaw o' his horn"-and what woman prophecies of that kind, she commonly brings to pass. On the other side of the fire, appeared others of the fraternity, pursuing a more noisy occupation-repairing fractured kettles, and copper sauce pans, and cementing and clasping glass and china. Nor did they lack tools for defence, as well as for trade. Against the wall lay several long and rusty swords, five or six dirks or knives, and a couple of good firelocks. Gins, and traps, nets, and fish-spears, were in abundance. Each man was armed with a long cut and thrust knife, sheathed in his coat sleeves when he went abroad. A dagger of this description, with a brace of old fashioned silver mounted pistols, depended from the girdle of the chieftain. They amounted to fifteen in all-seven men, three women, and five children. G

With a face of mustered courage and resignation I sat down on an ass's old pannier beside the chieftain, and submitted with silence and fear to the sharp scrutiny of many members of the tribe, and which continued for several minutes. One fellow, with a sinister cast of face, affected to measure me over with the scrupulous attention of a hunter after the bumps and knobs which men have discovered indicative of an evil genius. "I'll haud a horn spoon," said he," to a handful of meal," uniting in his wager his past and present professions, for he had begged meal down the water of Kinnel, and baked bread up the water of Scaur, "that this younker comes like a hoodie craw before a flock of ravens he'll lilt up a psalm, and a dozen of gullies will come and sneg our thrapples."- D'ye think sae, Sandy Macfen," said the brawny desperado, who had drawn his knife on me before-" Dash it, dy'e think saeby a' the bells o' Gotterbeg, and there were ance seventeen o' them, I'll slit his weazon, if he sings a sang or a psalm here or opens a lip, save for a horn spoon-dom me if I disnae"and he half unsheathed his knife, to show his sincerity. 66 Hoot, hoot, Jamie," said a gypsie, whose dialect announced a stark Galwegian, laying aside, at the same time, a most intractable ram-horn he was straightening" od yere aye sae fear'd-faith ye'll quarrel with the very mools, because mools makes graves, and may make yours, if ye dinnaglower through hemp, and gang for dissection-od ye'll die ere yere day comes through nought but fear."-Gypsie Jamie, who was a fiery man of Annandale, and long a companion in the famous horde of the Kennedies of the Hightae, stared on the Galwegian at this sally, the redness of wrath rising triumphant o'er his dusky complexion. The Galwegian, however, bearing the name, and boasting of a share in the blood of the potent, and ancient family of the Macgrabs, returned the stare of the borderer, nothing daunted-and said-"Let me tell ye, man, I've sauld mony a spoon, and got mony a bite and soup frae the name of Macrabinand by the dunnerin Troughs o' Tongland, if ye touch this bairn wi' a harmfu' hand, I'll make a cart-road for the worms through amang yere ribs." In the midst of this unexpected

altercation, a ripe and handsome young woman, the grand-daughter of the chieftain, made her appearance from the remotest end of the hall.-She drew a sanquhar mantle, or rather, a counterpane, from her shoulders, as she advanced, leaving her person arrayed in the extreme simplicity of her tribe.

Hooly, hooly," said the damsel, stepping between the contending dependants of her tribe, holding the mantle in her hand, ready to cast upon the daggers, which were expected to be drawn. Her stature was rather above the middle size-her whole person shaped like the most perfect production of a statuary-firm, full, and elegant-and her carriage erect, wild, and unconstrained. Her locks, long and curling, flowed freely on her shoulders-and her large dark eyes sat shining under a close mass of raven curls, with which nature had striven to conceal a high and polished forehead. "Hooly, hooly, said the fearless damsel-folly has been and will be the downfall of our race. The hard hand o' the law, with a halter in't, cares for neither yere red anger, nor yere sharp dirks-drap yere wrathwill ye be fierce with ane anither, and fear'd for a' beside yere just like twa corbies, pyking out ane anither's een o'er a dead lamb, when the gun o' the shepherd's cocked at their crapins.Weel may I say, the days o' our might are gane-and Kate Marshall maun be wife to some soulless coof, wha wants the courage to cock a pistol, and sense to haud his hands from folk's hen bawks-she'll be brided in a mortclaith sooner."

All applauded this speech of the young heroine, and their wrath had a brief truce. The Annandale desperado named "Jamie o' the dub o' Dryfe," threw his knife at his feet, and cried aloud,-" Weel said, ye bonny chicken o' the bauld blue hen. By the best haft to a steel blade, and that's a strang shackle-bane-and by the best sheath for a sharp gully, and that's an enemy's wame, ye're a bauld lass, and a bonny-dome me, if thou isnae. By a' the tup horns o' Dryfe, I wish auld Daddie Clinkkettle would sowder us together, and cry, The Bridal's done-bairns to bed." The fierce dignity with which the offended heroine greeted this audacious proposal from a dependant, might have become a queen of the Amazons. She drew

herself back, adding, by the movement, a nail on my auld elwand to her natural height, and shook back the profusion of raven curls from her brow. Her swarthy eyes glimmered fearfully bright, and words to give utterance to all this visible scorn and wrath were ready to pass her lips, when the interposition of a hitherto unheeded and silent dependant took all attention away from meaner things. Ere the hero of the Dub o' Dryfe had concluded his address, a young and powerful man, who sat cementing china in the corner, and who had regarded all that had hitherto happened as common occurrences, began to shew the deep interest he took in this unexpected proposal. He started up, muttering, as he rose, some of the readiest words in which fury manifests herself-the forerunners of the fiercest language and the most desperate deeds, and the china he was repairing was crushed to dust against the distant walls of the room. "By the cravat of your Grandfather," said he to the man of Dryfe, "and that was a hempen one-and by the hand that fitted it on, and that was the hangman's, I shall save the collar that's destined to grace the craigs of your kindred all future trouble, if ye dare but to touch the hand of my cousin, bonny Kate Marshall." To this speech, in which, perhaps, the jealousy of rivalry embittered the cup of offence that had been proffered to the lips of his kindred, the man of Drysdale replied with a loud and discordant laugh, something like the shrieking scream of the owl when, with expanded wings, it comes pounce on its prey. His face grew black as death, and even dilated with the infernal smile which curled his lips, and his whole frame quivered with rage-it was only for a moment. He seized the mortal weapon, which lay at his feet, by the point, and launched it with amazing force at the head of the cousin of Kate Marshall. But he had to combat with a man far more cool, and equally desperate as himself. He ducked his head as a water-hen does when the fowler's gun flashes; the dangerous missile grazed his hair as he sunk, and flying far beyond, sunk deep into the pannier of an old ass, the property of the Patriarch himself, which, covered with a worn mantle, and caparisons of untanned leather, stood ruminating over a sheaf of fresh corn in the corner. The ass,

at this aggression, addressed to the hand from which the harm proceeded, a deep and dolorous bray-a moving cry of the most pathetic expostulation; and, snapping its halter in two, came rushing between the gypsey combatants, effectually shielding them from the mortal thrusts which, with bared swords, they were aiming at each other.

During this period of controversy and aggression, the chieftain sat on the old pannier with most perfect composure and unconcern; he heard all, but heeded none; and seemed, by his silence, to decide that the death of one or two of the most ferocious and turbulent of his gang would be an acceptable event.

He even applied himself with more than common diligence to the construction of a silver mouthpiece for the living cow's horn, and I cannot say that his skill in this elegant craft was abated by the mortal conclusion to which his dependants seemed hastening; nay, he even gave one "tout" on the instrument, for the apparent purpose of proving the merit of his labour; but as it was uttered at the moment the dirks were drawn, I suspect he internally considered it as a bugle note to battle. But this composure was soon to be shaken. The moment he perceived what had be fallen his ancient and favourite ass, he started from his seat with unexpected agility, and pulling a silver mounted pistol from his girdle, cocked it, and unbuckled the panniers of the animal. The ashen hue of his cheek waxed of a kindlier colour when, on removing the caparisons, he discovered that the missile had drawn blood, but only penetrated skin deep. It had been thrown from a hand so desperate and so powerful, that it forced its way through among two bunches of horn spoons, and the lid of a brass sauce-pan. The old man uncocked his pistol, replaced it in his belt, and, stroking the neck of the old and conscious animal, said, with a visible and tender kindness, "Thou auld sonsie beast-thou best piece of ass's flesh that ever cropped cornthou that hast balanced spoons on thy back to Mall Marshall and her seventeen lad weans, and seen them all laid under the green turf, waes me! The living hand that harms thy life shall soon belong to a dead man, else let never man trust a spark wi' powder mair." So saying, he led the aged