derstanding them, and with legal disquisitions, which conveyed to him no iota of meaning. At length the learned burgess recollected that there was a Baron Court to be held at Loan-head that day, and though it was hardly worth while, "he might as weel go to see if there was ony thing doing, as he was acquainted with the baron-baillie, who was a decent man, and would be glad of a word of legal advice.”

So soon as he departed, Butler flew to the Bible, the last book which Jeanie had touched. To his extreme surprise, a paper, containing two or three pieces of gold, dropped from the book. With a black lead pencil, she had marked the sixteenth and twenty-fifth verses of the thirty-seventh Psalm," A little that a righteous man hath, is better than the riches of the wick ed."-" I have been young and am now old, yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging their bread."

Deeply impressed with the affectionate delicacy which shrouded its own generosi

ty under the cover of a providential supply to his wants, he pressed the gold to his lips with more ardour than ever the metal was greeted by a miser. To emulate her devout firmness and confidence seemed now the pitch of his ambition, and his first task was to write an account to David Deans of his daughter's resolution and journey southward. He studied every sentiment, and even every phrase, which he thought could reconcile the old man to her extraordinary resolution. The effect which this epistle produced will be hereafter adverted to. Butler committed it to the charge of an honest clown, who had frequent dealings with Deans in the sale of his dairy produce, and who readily undertook a journey to Edinburgh, to put the letter into his own hands.*

* By dint of assiduous research I am enabled to certiorate the reader, that the name of this person was Saunders Broadfoot, and that he dealt in the wholesome commodity called kirn-milk, (Anglice, butter-milk).— J. C.

CHAPTER III.

"My native land, good night."

Lord Byron.

In the present day, a journey from Edinburgh to London is a matter at once safe, brief, and simple, however inexperienced or unprotected the traveller. Numerous coaches of different rates of charge, and as many packets, are perpetually passing and repassing betwixt the capital of Britain and her northern sister, so that the most timid or indolent may execute such a journey upon a few hours notice. But it was dif ferent in 1737. So slight and infrequent was the intercourse betwixt London and Edinburgh, that men still alive remember that upon one occasion the mail from the

former city arrived at the General PostOffice in Scotland, with only one letter in it. The usual mode of travelling was by means of post-horses, the traveller occupying one and his guide another, in which manner, by relays of horses from stage to stage, the journey might be accomplished in a wonderfully short time by those who could endure fatigue. To have the bones shaken to pieces by a constant change of those hacks, was a luxury for the richthe poor were under the necessity of using the mode of conveyance with which nature had provided them.

With a strong heart, and a frame patient of fatigue, Jeanie Deans, travelling at the rate of twenty miles a-day, and sometimes farther, traversed the southern part of Scotland, and advanced as far as Durham.

Hitherto she had been either among her own country-folks, or those to whom her bare feet and tartan screen were objects too familiar to attract much attention. But as she advanced, she perceived that both

circumstances exposed her to sarcasm and taunts,' which she might otherwise have escaped; and, although in her heart she thought it unkind, and unhospitable, to sneer at a passing stranger on account of the fashion of her attire, yet she had the good sense to alter those parts of her dress which attracted ill-natured observation. Her checqued screen was deposited care. fully in her bundle, and she conformed to the national extravagance of wearing shoes and stockings for the whole day.

She confessed afterwards, that " besides the wastrife, it was lang or she could walk sae comfortably with the shoes as without them, but there was often a bit saft heather by the road-side, and that helped her weel on." The want of the screen, which was drawn over the head like a veil, she sup plied by a bon-grace, as she called it; a large straw bonnet, like those worn by the English maidens when labouring in the fields. "But I thought unco shame o' mysell," she said, "the first time I put on a