west, but, breaking off into different directions, was intersected by a few fields, well watered and sheltered. The house fronted to the south-east, and from thence the pleasure-ground, or, I should rather say, the gardens, sloped down to the water. I afterwards understood that the father of the present proprietor had a considerable taste for horticulture, which had been inherited by his son, and had formed these gardens, which, with their shaven turf, pleached alleys, wildernesses, and exotic trees and shrubs, greatly excelled anything of the kind which had been attempted in the neighbourhood.

If there was a little vanity in the complacent smile with which Joshua Geddes saw me gaze with delight on a scene so different from the naked waste we had that day traversed in company, it might surely be permitted to one, who, cultivating and improving the beauties of nature, had found therein, as he said, bodily health and a pleasing relaxation for the mind. At the bottom of the extended dens the brook wheeled round in a wide semi-circle, and was itself their boundary. The opposite side was no part of Joshua's domain, but the brook was there skirted by a precipitous rock of limestone, which seemed a barrier of Nature's own erecting around his little Eden of beauty, comfort, and peace.

gar

"But I must not let thee forget," said the kind Quaker, "amidst thy admiration of these beauties of our little inheritance, that thy breakfast has been a light one."

So saying, Joshua conducted me to a small sashed door, opening under a porch amply mantled by honeysuckle and clematis, into a parlour of moderate size; the furniture of which, in plainness and excessive cleanliness, bore the characteristic marks of the sect to which the owner belonged.

Thy father's Hannah is generally allowed to be an exception to all Scottish housekeepers, and stands unparalleled for cleanliness among the women of Auld Reekie ; but the cleanliness of Hannah is sluttishness, compared to the scrupulous purifications of these people, who seem

14

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It

to carry into the minor decencies of life that conscientious
rigour which they y affect in their morals. won võ batse
The parlour would have been gloomy, for the win-
dows were small and the ceiling low; but the present pro-
prietor had rendered it more cheerful, by opening one end
into a small conservatory roofed with glass, and divided
from the parlour by a partition of the same. I have never
before seen this very pleasing manner of uniting the com-
forts of an apartment with the beauties of a garden, and
I wonder it is not more practised by the great. Some-
thing of the kind is hinted at in a paper of the Spectator.
As I walked towards the conservatory to view it more
closely, the parlour chimney engaged my attention.
was a pile of massive stone, entirely out of proportion to
the size of the apartment. On the front had once been
an armorial escutcheon; for the hammer or chisel, which
had been employed to deface the shield and crest, had
left uninjured the scroll beneath, which bore the pious
motto, Trust in God." Black-letter, you know, was
my early passion, and the tomb-stones in the Grey-Friar's
Church-yard early yielded up to my knowledge as a de-
cipherer, what little they could tell of the forgotten dead.
Joshua Geddes paused when he saw my eye fixed on
this relique of antiquity. "Thou canst read it?" he said.
Frepeated the motto, and added, there seemed vestiges
of a date.

"It should be 1537," said he ; "for so long ago, at
the least computation, did my ancestors, in the blinded
times of Papistry, possess these lands, and in that year
did they build their house."

166

It is an ancient descent," said I, looking with respect
upon the monument. "I am sorry
the arms have been
defaced."

It was perhaps impossible for my friend, Quaker as he was, to seem altogether void of respect for the pedigree which he began to recount to me, disclaiming all the while the vanity usually connected with the subject; in short, with, the air of mingled melancholy, regret, and 7 VOL. I.

youthful limbs, as well as a good plain meal thy youthful appetite. What say'st thou, my young acquaintance?"

If it puts you not to inconvenience," I replied; for the invitation was cordially given, and my bread and milk had been hastily swallowed, and in small quantity.

Nay," said Joshua, "use not the language of compliment with those who renounce it. Had this poor courtesy been very inconvenient, perhaps I had not offered it." "I accept the invitation, then," said I, "in the same good spirit in which you give it."

The Quaker smiled, reached me his hand, I shook it, and we travelled on in great cordiality with each other. The fact is, I was much entertained by contrasting in my own mind, the open manner of the kind-hearted Joshua Geddes, with the abrupt, dark, and lofty demeaour of my entertainer on the preceding evening. Both were blunt and unceremonious; but the plainness of the Quaker had the character of devotional simplicity, and was mingled with the more real kindness, as if honest Joshua was desirous of atoning, by his sincerity, for the lack of external courtesy. On the contrary, the manners of the fisherman were those of one to whom the rules of good behaviour might be familiar, but who, either from pride or misanthropy, scorned to observe them. Still I thought of him with interest and curiosity, notwithstanding so much about him that was repulsive; and I promised myself in the course of my conversation with the Quaker, to learn all that he knew on the subject. He turned the conver sation, however, into a different channel, and inquired into my own condition of life, and views in visiting this remote frontier.

I only thought it necessary to mention my name, and add, that I had been educated to the law, but finding myself possessed of some independence, I had of late permitted myself some relaxation, and was residing at Shepherd's Bush to enjoy the pleasure of angling.

"I do thee no harm, young man," said my new friend in wishing thee a better employment for thy grave

hours, and a more humane amusement (if amusement thou must have) for those of a lighter character."

You are severe, sir," I replied. "I heard you but a moment since refer yourself to the protection of the laws of the country if there be laws, there must be lawyers to explain, and judges to administer them."

1.Joshua smiled, and pointed to the sheep which were grazing on the downs over which we were travelling.→→→ "Were a wolf," he said, " to come even now upon yonder flocks, they would crowd for protection, doubtless, around the shepherd and his dogs; yet they are bitten and harassed daily by the one, shorn, and finally killedand eaten, by the other. But I say not this to shock you; for, though laws and lawyers are evils, yet they are ne→ cessary evils in this probationary state of society, till man shall learn to render unto his fellows that which is their due, according to the light of his own conscience, and through no other compulsion. Meanwhile, I have known many righteous men who have followed thy intended profession in honesty and uprightness of walk. The greater their merit, who walk erect in a path which so many find slippery."

"And angling," said I, "you object to that also as an amusement, you who, if I understood rightly what passed between you and my late landlord, are yourself a proprietor of fisheries?"

"Not a proprietor," he replied; “I am only, in copartnery with others, a tacksman or lessee of some valuable salmon-fisheries a little down the coast. But mistake me not. The evil of angling, with which I class all sports, as they are called, which have the sufferings of animals for their end and object, does not consist in the mere catching and killing those animals with which the bounty of Providence hath stocked the earth for the good of man, but in making their protracted agony a principle of delight and enjoyment. I do indeed cause these fisheries to be conducted for the necessary taking, killing, and selling the fish; and, in the same way, were I a farmer, I should send my lambs to 6*

VOL. I.

market. 10 But I should as soon think of contriving myself a sport and amusement out of the trade of the butcher, as out of that of the fisher."

- We argued this point no farther; for though I thought his arguments a little too high-strained, yet as my mind acquitted me of having taken delight in aught but the theory of field-sports, I did not think myself called upon stubbornly to advocate a practice which had afforded me so little pleasure.

We had by this time arrived at the remains of an old finger-post, which my host had formerly pointed out as a land-mark. Here, a ruinous wooden bridge, supported by long posts resembling crutches, served me to get across the water, while my new friend sought a ford a good way higher up, for the stream was considerably swelled.o

As I paused for his rejoining me, I observed an angler at a little distance pouching trout after trout, as fast almost as he could cast his line; and I own, in spite of Joshua's lecture on humanity, I could not but envy his adroitness and success ;—so natural is the love of sport to our minds, or so easily are we taught to assimilate success in £elds sports with ideas of pleasure, and with the praise due to address and agility. I soon recognized in the successful angler little Benjie, who had been my guide and tutor in that gentle art, as you have learned from my former letters. I called I whistled-the rascal recognized me, and, starting like a guilty thing, seemed hesitating whether to approach or to run away; and when he determined on the former, it was to assail me with a loud, clamorous, and exaggerated report of the anxiety of all at the Shepherd's Bush for my personal safety; how my landlady had wept, how Sam and the ostler had not the heart to go to bed, but sat up all night drinking-and how he himself had been up long before daybreak to go in quest of me. "And you were switching the water, I suppose," said I," to discover my dead body?"

This observation produced a long Na-a-a" of acknowledged detection; but, with his natural impudence, and confidence in my good-nature, he immediately added,