precisely certain which-but I have a copy at home that stands next to my twelvemo copy of the Scots Acts, and ranges on the shelf with them very well. What say you to that, Mr. Oldbuck?"

"Say?-why, I laugh at Harry Maule and his history," answered Oldbuck, "and thereby comply with his request, of giving it entertainment according to its merits."

"Do not laugh at a better man than yourself," said Sir Arthur, somewhat scornfully. "I do not conceive I do, Sir Arthur, in laughing either at him or his history."

Henry Maule of Melgum was a gentleman, Mr. Oldbuck."

“I presume he had no advantage of me in that particular," replied the Antiquary, somewhat tartly.

"Permit me, Mr. Oldbuck-he was a gentleman of high family, and ancient descent, and therefore"

"The descendant of a Westphalian printer should speak of him with deference? Such may be your opinion, Sir Arthur-it is not mine. I conceive that my descent from that painful and industrious typographer, Wolfbrand Oldenbuck, who, in the month of December, 1493, under the patronage, as the colophon tells us, of Sebaldus Scheyter and Sebastian Kammermaister, accomplished the printing of the great Chronicle of Nuremberg -I conceive, I say, that my descent from that great restorer of learning is more creditable to me as a man of letters, than if I had numbered in my genealogy all the brawling, bullet-headed, iron-fisted, old Gothic barons since the days of Crentheminacheryme-not one of whom, I suppose, could write his own name."

"If you mean the observation as a sneer at my ancestry," said the knight, with an assumption of dignified superiority and composure, "I have the pleasure to inform you, that the name of my ancestor, Gamelyn de Guardover, Miles, is written fairly with his own hand in the earliest copy of the Ragman-roll.”

"Which only serves to show that he was one of the earliest who set the mean example of submitting to Edward I. What have you to say for the stainless loyalty of your family, Sir Arthur, after such a backsliding as that?"

"It's enough, sir," said Sir Arthur, starting up fiercely, and pushing back his chair; "I shall hereafter take care how I honour with my company one who shows himself so ungrateful for my condescension."

"In that you will do as you find most agreeable, Sir Arthur;—I hope, that as I was not aware of the extent of the obligation which you have done me by visiting my poor house, I may be excused for not having carried my gratitude to the extent of servility." "Mighty well-mighty well, Mr. Oldbuck-I wish you a good evening-Mr. a-aa-Shovel-I wish you a very good evening."

Out of the parlour door flounced the incensed Sir Arthur, as if the spirit of the whole Round Table inflamed his single bosom, and traversed with long strides the labyrinth of passages which conducted to the drawing-room.

"Did you ever hear such an old tup-headed ass?" said Oldbuck, briefly apostrophizing Lovel. "But I must not let him go in this mad-like way neither."

"So saying, he pushed off after the retreating Baronet, whom he traced by the clang of several doors which he opened in search of the apartment for tea, and slammed with force behind him at every disappointment. "You'll do yourself a mischief," roared the Antiquary; "Qui ambulat in tenebris, nescit quo vadit-You'll tumble down the back-stair."

Sir Arthur had now got involved in darkness, of which the sedative effect is well known to nurses and governesses who have to deal with pettish children. It retarded the pace of the irritated Baronet, if it did not abate his resentment, and Mr. Oldbuck, better acquainted with the locale, got up with him as he had got his grasp upon the handle of the drawing-room door.

"Stay a minute, Sir Arthur," said Oldbuck, opposing his abrupt entrance; "don't be

quite so hasty, my good old friend. I was a little too rude with you about Sir Gamelyn -why, he is an old acquaintance of mine, man, and a favourite; he kept company with Bruce and Wallace-and, I'll be sworn on a black-letter Bible, only subscribed the Ragman-roll with the legitimate and justifiable intention of circumventing the false Southern-'twas right Scottish craft, my good knight-hundreds did it. Come, come,

forget and forgive-confess we have given the young fellow here a right to think us two testy old fools."

66

Speak for yourself, Mr. Jonathan Oldbuck," said Sir Arthur, with much majesty. "A-well, a-well-a wilful man must have his way."

With that the door opened, and into the drawing-room marched the tall gaunt form of Sir Arthur, followed by Lovel and Mr. Oldbuck, the countenances of all the three a little discomposed.

"I have been waiting for you, sir," said Miss Wardour, "to propose we should walk forward to meet the carriage, as the evening is so fine."

Sir Arthur readily assented to this proposal, which suited the angry mood in which he found himself; and having, agreeably to the established custom in cases of pet, refused the refreshment of tea and coffee, he tucked his daughter under his arm; and, after taking a ceremonious leave of the ladies, and a very dry one of Oldbuck—off he marched. "I think Sir Arthur has got the black dog on his back again," said Miss Oldbuck. "Black dog!-black devil!-he's more absurd than womankind-What say you, Lovel? Why, the lad's gone too."

"He took his leave, uncle, while Miss Wardour was putting on her things; but I don't think you observed him."

"The devil's in the people! This is all one gets by fussing and bustling, and putting one's self out of one's way in order to give dinners, besides all the charges they are put to!-O Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia!" said he, taking up a cup of tea in the one hand, and a volume of the Rambler in the other,—for it was his regular custom to read while he was eating or drinking in presence of his sister, being a practice which served at once to evince his contempt for the society of womankind, and his resolution to lose no moment of instruction," O Seged, Emperor of Ethiopia! well hast thou spoken-No man should presume to say, This shall be a day of happiness."

Oldbuck proceeded in his studies for the best part of an hour, uninterrupted by the ladies, who each, in profound silence, pursued some female employment. At length, a light and modest tap was heard at the parlour door. "Is that you, Caxon ?-come in, come in, man."

The old man opened the door, and, thrusting in his meagre face, thatched with thin grey locks, and one sleeve of his white coat, said in a subdued and mysterious tone of voice, "I was wanting to speak to you, sir.”

"Come in then, you old fool, and say what you have got to say." "I'll maybe frighten the ladies," said the ex-friseur.

"Frighten!" answered the Antiquary,-" what do you mean? Have you seen another ghaist at the Humlock-knowe?"

-never mind the ladies.

"Na, sir—it's no a ghaist this turn,” replied Caxon ;-" but I'm no easy in my mind." "Did you ever hear of any body that was?" answered Oldbuck;-" what reason has an old battered powder-puff like you to be easy in your mind, more than all the rest of the world besides?"

"It's no for mysell, sir; but it threatens an awfu' night; and Sir Arthur, and Miss Wardour, poor thing".

Why, man, they must have met the carriage at the head of the loaning, or thereabouts; they must be home long ago."

"Na, sir; they didna gang the road by the turnpike to meet the carriage, they gaed by the sands."

The word operated like electricity on Oldbuck. "The sands!" he exclaimed; "impossible!"

"Ou, sir, that's what I said to the gardener; but he says he saw them turn down by the Mussel-craig. In troth, says I to him, an that be the case, Davie, I am misdoubting

"An almanack! an almanack!" said Oldbuck, starting up in great alarm-" not that bauble!" flinging away a little pocket almanack which his niece offered him.-" Great God! my poor dear Miss Isabella!-Fetch me instantly the Fairport Almanack."-It was brought, consulted, and added greatly to his agitation. "I'll go myself-call the gardener and ploughman-bid them bring ropes and ladders-bid them raise more help as they come along-keep the top of the cliffs, and halloo down to them-I'll go myself." "What is the matter?" inquired Miss Oldbuck and Miss M'Intyre.

"The tide !-the tide!" answered the alarmed Antiquary.

"Had not Jenny better-but no, I'll run myself," said the younger lady, partaking in all her uncle's terrors-"I'll run myself to Saunders Mucklebackit, and make him get out his boat."

"Thank you, my dear, that's the wisest word that has been spoken yet-Run! run! -To go by the sands!" seizing his hat and cane; was there ever such madness heard of!"

HE information of Davie Dibble, which had spread such general alarm at Monkbarns, proved to be strictly correct. Sir Arthur and his daughter had set out, according to their first proposal, to return to Knockwinnock by the turnpike road; but when they reached the head of the loaning, as it was called, or great lane, which on one side made a sort of avenue to the house of Monkbarns, they discerned, a little way before them, Lovel, who seemed to linger on the way as if to give him an opportunity to join them. Miss Wardour immediately proposed to her father that they should take another direction; and, as the weather was fine, walk home by the sands, which, stretching below a picturesque ridge of rocks, afforded at almost all times a pleasanter passage between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns than the high road.

Sir Arthur acquiesced willingly. "It would be unpleasant," he said, " to be joined by that young fellow, whom Mr. Oldbuck had taken the freedom to introduce them to." And his old-fashioned politeness had none of the ease of the present day, which permits you, if you have a mind, to cut the person you have associated with for a week, the instant you feel or suppose yourself in a situation which makes it disagreeable to own him. Sir Arthur only stipulated, that a little ragged boy, for the guerdon of one penny sterling, should run to meet his coachman, and turn his equipage back to Knockwinnock.

When this was arranged, and the emissary despatched, the knight and his daughter left the high-road, and following a wandering path among sandy hillocks, partly grown over with furze and the long grass called bent, soon attained the side of the ocean. The tide was by no means so far out as they had computed; but this gave them no alarm ;-there were seldom ten days in the year when it approached so near the cliffs as not to leave a dry passage. But, nevertheless, at periods of spring-tide, or even when the ordinary flood was accelerated by high winds, this road was altogether covered by the sea; and tradition had recorded several fatal accidents which had happened on such occasions. Still, such dangers were considered as remote and improbable; and rather served, with other legends, to amuse the hamlet fireside, than to prevent any one from going between Knockwinnock and Monkbarns by the sands.

As Sir Arthur and Miss Wardour paced along, enjoying the pleasant footing afforded by the cool moist hard sand, Miss Wardour could not help observing that the last tide had risen considerably above the usual water-mark. Sir Arthur made the same observation, but without its occurring to either of them to be alarmed at the circumstance. The sun was now resting his huge disk upon the edge of the level ocean, and gilded the accumulation of towering clouds through which he had travelled the livelong day, and which now assembled on all sides, like misfortunes and disasters around a sinking empire and falling monarch. Still, however, his dying splendour gave a sombre magnificence to the massive congregation of vapours, forming out of their unsubstantial gloom the show of pyramids and towers, some touched with gold, some with purple, some with a hue of deep and dark red. The distant sea, stretched beneath this varied and gorgeous canopy, lay almost portentously still, reflecting back the dazzling and level beams of the descending luminary, and the splendid colouring of the clouds amidst which he was setting. Nearer to the beach, the tide rippled onward in waves of sparkling silver, that imperceptibly, yet rapidly, gained upon the sand.

With a mind employed in admiration of the romantic scene, or perhaps on some more agitating topic, Miss Wardour advanced in silence by her father's side, whose recently offended dignity did not stoop to open any conversation. Following the windings of the beach, they passed one projecting point of headland or rock after another, and now found themselves under a huge and continued extent of the precipices by which that iron-bound coast is in most places defended. Long projecting reefs of rock, extending under water, and only evincing their existence by here and there a peak entirely bare, or by the breakers which foamed over those that were partially covered, rendered Knockwinnock bay dreaded by pilots and ship-masters. The crags which rose between the beach and

the mainland, to the height of two or three hundred feet, afforded in their crevices shelter for unnumbered sea-fowl, in situations seemingly secured by their dizzy height from the rapacity of man. Many of these wild tribes, with the instinct which sends them to seek the land before a storm arises, were now winging towards their nests with the shrill and dissonant clang which announces disquietude and fear. The disk of the sun became almost totally obscured ere he had altogether sunk below the horizon, and an early and lurid shade of darkness blotted the serene twilight of a summer evening. The wind began next to arise; but its wild and moaning sound was heard for some time, and its effects became visible on the bosom of the sea, before the gale was felt on shore. The