keys, as if I wanted them frae ye? Gie us na mair o' your clishmaclavers, but gang ben the house, and gin ye dinna think better o't in the morning, I'se warrant you'll find nae objections on my part to your seeking for another place."

Perceiving, now, that the contest was likely to terminate without any important results, and observing both parties to manifest an inclination for peace, on the footing of the status ante bellum, I took an early opportunity of withdrawing from the field, and returned to my quarters in the College.

CHAPTER XIV.

Farewell! a word that hath been, and must be.

BYRON.

Now lords and earls, and all their sweeping train,
And garters, stars, and coronets appear.

POPE.

In youth, with all its gaiety and excitements, "time passes o'er us with a noiseless lapse;" and his course is swift and trackless as that of a bird. Spring was now gone, and it was summer. The halls of the College were once more deserted, and I, too, made preparation for departure.

The first of May is the day fixed by immemorial usage in the University, for the distribution of the prizes a day looked forward to with "hopes, and fears that kindle hope," by many youthful and ar dent spirits. The great hall of the College on that day certainly presents a very pleasing and animated spectacle. The academical distinctions are bestowed with much of ceremonial pomp, in presence of a vast concourse of spectators, and it is not uninteresting to mark the flush of bashful triumph on the cheek of the victor,-the sparkling of his downcast eye, as the hall is rent with loud applause, when he advances to receive the badge of honour assigned him by the voice of his fellow-students. It is altogether a sight to stir the spirit in the youthful bosom, and stimulate into healthy action faculties which, but for such excitement, might have continued in unbroken slumber. Of such distinctions, irregular as my hab

its of study had been, I was a partaker. In some of
my classes I stood first,-in all I carried off some
mark of successful application; and, in now looking
'back on the year which I spent in the College of
Glasgow, I cannot but refer to it, the acquisition of
that love of literature, which has never died within
me, and in which I have found a relief and a re-
source, under circumstances when its place could not
have been otherwise supplied.

Of my family I have of late said little, yet they were but seldom absent from my thoughts, and with the different members of it I kept up a constant intercourse by letter. My father seldom wrote to me, and when he did, his letters betrayed little of that affectionate feeling which might be expected to breathe in the confidential intercourse of a parent, and an only son. His letters were indeed neither harsh nor unkind, but they were cold and stately, and in character those of a monitor rigid in the performance of a duty, more than of a father, whose hopes were garnered up in the object he addressed. From my mother I heard more frequently, but writing was an exertion to which she was frequently unequal, and my principal correspondent was Jane. In the letters of that dear sister, nothing that interested me, was too insignificant to find a place. She gathered information from the grooms and keeper of my stud and kennel, which she faithfully embodied (bating a few technical mistakes,) in her epistles. She told me of Hecuba, my favourite old mare, and enlarged on the colour and beauty of her foal, which little Lucy fed daily in the paddock. She spoke, too, of Don and Ponto,-of Ariel, my little spaniel, petted and caressed by all, for the sake of her absent master. The accounts which I received from Jane of my mother's health, though unfavourable, did not ex

cite in me any alarm. Nor did either Jane or my father appear to feel such. She had, I was told, become more feeble, but a trip to Brighton was meditated, and the sea-breezes would restore her strength. She suffered from a severe cough; but this the warmth of the approaching summer would remove. Her spirits, too, were good, and her letters betrayed no symptom of the languor of disease. It is not the character of youth to anticipate evil. Death is then regarded as a distant, though inevitable event, to whose dreaded approach we shut our eyes and stop our ears, till his chariot-wheels are at hand, and he already thunders at the gate.

In this situation did matters stand, when, at the conclusion of the College session, I wrote to my father to learn his wishes as to my motions. My friend Conyers was about to visit one of his guardians in Yorkshire, an old fox-hunting squire, where he was to remain till a cornetcy of dragoons had been obtained for him. We proposed a tour by the Lakes, and he pressed me to accompany him on his visit, before returning to my own family. I mentioned this scheme to my father, and requested his consent. He gave it, but desired that I would take advantage of my being in Yorkshire to offer a visit to our relation the Earl of Amersham, with whom, from the seclusion in which my father had spent the latter years of his life, little intercourse, during my remembrance, had been maintained. To the advantages which might arise from keeping up this connexion, he was not insensible. The Earl was ministerial in his politics, and had a borough or two at command; and therefore he was, at least, a person worth courting, by a young man just about to enter the world, with fewer friends and smaller fortune than was desirable. My mother wrote accordingly to the Count

ess, with whom she had at one period of her life. been intimate, informing her that she could not hear of my being in Yorkshire without feeling anxious that I should become personally known to relations, for whom both she and my father entertained so perfect a regard.

Preliminaries being at length settled for our departure, Conyers and myself set forth on our excursion, with light and joyous hearts. My parting with my uncle was to me an affecting one. Before I rose to say farewell, at our last interview, we had been conversing for about an hour. I had laid before him with perfect openness and sincerity my hopes and prospects, for I then regarded him only as a warm and faithful friend. He could scarcely be expected to approve of my partiality for a military life, but he had knowledge enough of character to perceive that my inclinations were not to be controlled on this matter, and he did not seriously attempt it.

"Weel, Cyril," said he, "since ye will be a sodg. er, and are fool enough to gang to be shot at for twa or three shillings a day, when ye might stay at hame and do far better, it's needless for me to try and reason you out o' what I see ye've set your heart on. But gang where ye like, ye'll hae the prayers o' an auld man for the blessings o' Providence on your head. May God's mercy be a fence and a buckler to you in the day of battle, and his grace ever guide you and protect you in the perilous course of life on which you are about to enter."

Here the old man was silent, the expression of his face was stern and unmoved as ever, but my own heart sympathetically told me of all that was working in his. Tears gushed from my eyes as I rose to bid him adieu. I endeavoured, but I could not speak. He grasped my hand in his, with a strong