they would fit ye in the meantime; and I would just take a pleasure in driving the needle all night, to get your own ready." "A clever thought," said the Englisher. "Do you think they would fit me ?-Devilish clever thought, indeed." "To a hair," I answered; and cried to Nanse to bring the velveteens.

I do not think he was ten minutes, when lo, and behold! out at the door he went, and away past the shop-window like a lamplighter. The buttons on the velveteens were glittering like gold at the knees. Alas! it was like the flash of the setting sun; I never beheld them more. He was to have been back in two or three hours, but the laddie, with the box on his shoulder, was going through the street crying "Hot penny-pies" for supper, and neither word nor wittens of him. I began to be a thought uneasy, and fidgeted on the board like a hen on a hot girdle. No man should do any thing when he is vexed, but I could not help giving Tammy Bodkin, who was sewing away at the lining of the new pantaloons, a terrible whisk in the lug for singing to himself. I say I was vexed for it afterwards; especially as the laddie did not mean to give offence; and as I saw the blae marks of my four fingers along his chaft-blade.

The wife had been bothering me for a new gown, on strength of the payment of our grand bill; and in came she, at this blessed moment of time, with about twenty swatches from Simeon Calicoe's prinned on a screed of

paper.

"Which of these do you think bonniest?" said Nanse, in a flattering way; "I ken, Mansie, you have a good taste.”

"Cut not before the cloth," answered I, "gudewife," with a wise shake of my head. "It'll be time enough, I daresay, to make your choice to-morrow."

Nanse went out as if her nose had been blooding. I could thcle it no longer; so, buttoning my breeches-knees, I threw my cowl into a corner, clapped my hat on my head, and away down in full birr to the Duke's gate.

I speired at the porter, if the gentleman with the velveteen breeches and powdered hair, that was dining with the Duke, had come up the avenue yet?

"Velveteen breeches and powdered hair!" said auld Paul

laughing, and taking the pipe out of his cheek, "whose butler is't that ye're after ? "

'Well," said I to him, "I see it all as plain as a pikestaff. He is off bodily; but may the meat and the drink he has taken off us be like drogs to his inside; and may the velveteens play crack, and cast the steeks at every step he takes!" It was no Christian wish; and Paul laughed till he was like to burst, at my expense. "Gang your ways hame, Mansie,” said he to me, clapping me on the shoulder as if I had been a wean, "and give over setting traps, for ye see you have catched a Tartar."

This was too much; first to be cheated by a swindling loon, and then made game of by a flunkie; and, in my desperation, I determined to do some awful thing.

Nanse followed me in from the door, and asked what news? -I was ower big, and ower vexed to hear her; so, never letting on, I went to the little looking-glass on the drawers' head, and set it down on the table. Then I looked myself in it for a moment, and made a gruesome face. Syne I pulled out the little drawer, and got the sharping strap, the which I fastened to my button. Syne I took my razor from the box, and gave it five or six turns along first one side and then the other, with great precision. Syne I tried the edge of it along the flat of my hand. Syne I loosed my neckcloth, and laid it over the back of the chair; and syne I took out the button of my shirt-neck, and folded it back. Nanse, who was, all the time, standing behind, looking what I was after, asked me, "if I was going to shave without hot water?" when I said to her in a fierce and brave manner, (which was very cruel, considering the way she was in,) "I'll let you see that presently." The razor looked desperate sharp; and I never liked the sight of blood; but oh, I was in a terrible flurry and fermentation. A kind of cold trembling went through me; and I thought it best to tell Nanse what I was going to do, that she might be something prepared for it. "Fare ye well, my dear!" said I to her, "you will be a widow in five minutes for here goes! " I did not think she could have mustered so much courage, but she sprang at me like a tiger; and, throwing the razor into the ass-hole, took me round the neck, and cried like a bairn. First she was seized with a fit of the

hystericks, and then with her pains. It was a serious time for us both, and no joke; for my heart smote me for my sin and cruelty. But I did my best to make up for it. I ran up and down like mad for the Howdie, and at last brought her trotting along with me by the lug. I could not stand it. I shut myself up in the shop with Tammy Bodkin, like Daniel in the lions' den; and every now and then opened the door to speir what news. Oh, but my heart was like to break with anxiety! I paced up and down, and to and fro, with my Kilmarnock on my head, and my hands in my breeches pockets, like a man out of Bedlam. I thought it would never be over; but, at the second hour of the morning, I heard a wee squeel, and knew that I was a father; and so proud was I, that notwithstanding our loss, Lucky Bringthereout and me whanged away at the cheese and bread, and drank so briskly at the whisky and foot-yill, that, when she tried to rise and go away, she could not stir a foot. So Tammy and I had to oxter her out between us, and deliver the howdie herself-safe in at her own door.

CHAPTER IX.

BENJIE'S CHRISTENING.

We'll hap and row, hap and row,
We'll hap and row the feetie o't.

It is a wee bit weary thing,

I dinnie bide the greetie o't,

PROVOST CREECH.

An honest man, close button'd to the chin,
Broad-cloth without, and a warm heart within.

COWPER.

This great globe and all that it inherits shall dissolve,

And, like the baseless fabric of a vision,
Leave not a rack behind.

SHAKSPEARE.

AT the christening of our only bairn, Benjie, two or three remarkable circumstances occurred, which it behoves me to relate.

It was on a cold November afternoon; and really when the bit room was all redd up, the fire bleezing away, and the candles lighted, every thing looked full tosh and comfortable. It was a real pleasure, after looking out into the drift that was fleeing like mad from the east, to turn one's neb inwards, and think that we had a civilized home to comfort us in the dreary season. So, one after another, the bit party we had invited to the ceremony came papping in; and the crack began to get loud and hearty; for, to speak the truth, we were blessed with canny friends, and a good neighbourhood. Notwithstanding, it was very curious, that I had no mind of asking down James Batter, the weaver, honest man, though he was one of our own elders; and in papped James, just when the company had haffins met, with his stock ing-sleeves on his arms, his nightcap on his head, and his bluestained apron hanging down before him, to light his pipe at our fire.

James, when he saw his mistake, was fain to make his retreat; but we would not hear tell of it, till he came in, and took a dram out of the bottle, as we told him the not doing so would spoil the wean's beauty, which is an old freak, (the smallpox, however, afterwards did that ;) so, with much persuasion, he took a chair for a gliff, and began with some of his drolls-for he is a clever humoursome man, as ye ever met with. But he had now got far on with his jests, when lo! a rap came to the door, and Mysie whipped away the bottle under her apron, saying "Wheesht, wheesht, for the sake of gudeness, there's the minister!"

The room had only one door, and James mistook it, running his head, for lack of knowledge, into the open closet, just as the minister lifted the outer-door sneck. We were all now sitting on nettles, for we were frighted that James would be seized with a cough, for he was a wee asthmatic; or that some, knowing there was a thief in the pantry, might hurt good manners by breaking out into a giggle. However, all for a considerable time was quiet, and the ceremony was performed; little Nancy, our niece, handing the bairn upon my arm to receive its name. So, we thought, as the minister seldom made a long stay on similar occasions, that all would pass off well enough—But wait

a wee.

There was but one of our company that had not cast up, to wit, Deacon Paunch, the flesher, a most worthy man, but tremendously big, and grown to the very heels; as was once seen on a wager, that his ankle was greater than my brans. It was really a pain to all feeling Christians, to see the worthy man waigling about, being, when weighed in his own scales, twoand-twenty stone ten ounces, Dutch weight. Honest man, he had had a sore fecht with the wind and the sleet, and he came in with a shawl roppined round his neck, peching like a brokenwinded horse; so fain was he to find a rest for his weary carcass in our stuffed chintz pattern elbow-chair by the fire cheek.

From the soughing of wind at the window, and the rattling in the lum, it was clear to all manner of comprehension, that the night was a dismal one; so the minister, seeing so many of his own douce folk about him, thought he might do worse than volunteer to sit still, and try our toddy: indeed, we would have pressed him before this to do so; but what was to come of James Batter, who was shut up in the closet, like the spies in the house of Rahab the harlot, in the city of Jericho?

James began to find it was a bad business; and having been driving the shuttle about from before daylight, he was fain to cruik his hough, and felt round about him quietly in the dark for a chair to sit down upon, since better might not be. But, wae's me! the cat was soon out of the pock.

Me and the minister were just argle-bargling some few words on the doctrine of the camel and the eye of the needle, when, in the midst of our discourse, as all was wheesht and attentive, an awful thud was heard in the closet, which gave the minister, who thought the house had fallen down, such a start, that his very wig louped for a full three-eighths off his crown. I say we were needcessitated to let the cat out of the pock for two reasons; firstly, because we did not know what had happened; and, secondly, to quiet the minister's fears, decent man, for he was a wee nervous. So we made a hearty laugh of it, as well as we could, and opened the door to bid James Batter come out, as we confessed all. Easier said than done, howsoever. When we pulled open the door, and took forward one of the candles, there was James doubled up, sticking twofold like a rotten in a sneck-trap,