My father saw them toom the sacks of dollars out o' Provost Dick's window intill the carts that carried them to the army at Dunse Law; and if ye winna believe his testimony, there is the window itsell still standing in the Luckenbooths--I think it's a claith-merchant's booth the day*--at the airn stanchells, five doors abune Gossford's Close.
* I think so too--But if the reader be curious, he may consult Mr.
Chambers's Traditions of Edinburgh.
-- But now we haena sic spirit amang us; we think mair about the warst wallydraigle in our ain byre, than about the blessing which the angel of the covenant gave to the Patriarch even at Peniel and Mahanaim, or the binding obligation of our national vows; and we wad rather gie a pund Scots to buy an unguent to clear out auld rannell-trees and our beds o' the English bugs as they ca' them, than we wad gie a plack to rid the land of the swarm of Arminian caterpillars, Socinian pismires, and deistical Miss Katies, that have ascended out of the bottomless pit, to plague this perverse, insidious, and lukewarm generation." It happened to Davie Deans on this occasion, as it has done to many other habitual orators; when once he became embarked on his favourite subject, the stream of his own enthusiasm carried him forward in spite of his mental distress, while his well-exercised memory supplied him amply with all the types and tropes of rhetoric peculiar to his sect and cause.
Mr.Middleburgh contented himself with answering--"All this may be very true, my friend; but, as you said just now, I have nothing to say to it at present, either one way or other .-- You have two daughters, I think, Mr.Deans ?" The old man winced, as one whose smarting sore is suddenly galled; but instantly composed himself, resumed the work which, in the heat of his declamation, he had laid down, and answered with sullen resolution, "Ae daughter, sir--only _ane._" "I understand you," said Mr.Middleburgh; "you have only one daughter here at home with you--but this unfortunate girl who is a prisoner--she is, I think, your youngest daughter ?" The Presbyterian sternly raised his eyes.

"After the world, and according to the flesh, she _is_ my daughter; but when she became a child of Belial, and a company-keeper, and a trader in guilt and iniquity, she ceased to be a bairn of mine." "Alas, Mr.Deans," said Middleburgh, sitting down by him, and endeavouring to take his hand, which the old man proudly withdrew, "we are ourselves all sinners; and the errors of our offspring, as they ought not to surprise us, being the portion which they derive of a common portion of corruption inherited through us, so they do not entitle us to cast them off because they have lost themselves." "Sir," said Deans impatiently, "I ken a' that as weel as--I mean to say," he resumed, checking the irritation he felt at being schooled--a discipline of the mind which those most ready to bestow it on others do themselves most reluctantly submit to receive--"I mean to say, that what ye o serve may be just and reasonable--But I hae nae freedom to enter into my ain private affairs wi' strangers--And now, in this great national emergency, When there's the Porteous' Act has come doun frae London, that is a deeper blow to this poor sinfu' kingdom and suffering kirk than ony that has been heard of since the foul and fatal Test--at a time like this--" "But, goodman," interrupted Mr.Middleburgh, "you must think of your own household first, or else you are worse even than the infidels." "I tell ye, Bailie Middleburgh," retorted David Deans, "if ye be a bailie, as there is little honour in being ane in these evil days--I tell ye, I heard the gracious Saunders Peden--I wotna whan it was; but it was in killing time, when the plowers were drawing alang their furrows on the back of the Kirk of Scotland--I heard him tell his hearers, gude and waled Christians they were too, that some o' them wad greet mair for a bit drowned calf or stirk than for a' the defections and oppressions of the day; and that they were some o' them thinking o' ae thing, some o' anither, and there was Lady Hundleslope thinking o' greeting Jock at the fireside! And the lady confessed in my hearing that a drow of anxiety had come ower her for her son that she had left at hame weak of a decay*--And what wad he hae said of me if I had ceased to think of the gude cause for a castaway--a--It kills me to think of what she is!" * See _Life of Peden,_ p.

14.
"But the life of your child, goodman--think of that--if her life could be saved," said Middleburgh.
"Her life!" exclaimed David--"I wadna gie ane o' my grey hairs for her life, if her gude name be gane--And yet," said he, relenting and retracting as he spoke, "I wad make the niffer, Mr.Middleburgh--I wad gie a' these grey hairs that she has brought to shame and sorrow--I wad gie the auld head they grow on for her life, and that she might hae time to amend and return, for what hae the wicked beyond the breath of their nosthrils ?--but I'll never see her mair--No!--that--that I am determined in--I'll never see her mair!" His lips continued to move for a minute after his voice ceased to be heard, as if he were repeating the same vow internally.
"Well, sir," said Mr.Middleburgh, "I speak to you as a man of sense; if you would save your daughter's life, you must use human means." "I understand what you mean; but Mr.Novit, who is the procurator and doer of an honourable person, the Laird of Dumbiedikes, is to do what carnal wisdom can do for her in the circumstances.

Mysell am not clear to trinquet and traffic wi' courts o' justice as they are now constituted; I have a tenderness and scruple in my mind anent them." "That is to say," said Middleburgh, "that you are a Cameronian, and do not acknowledge the authority of our courts of judicature, or present government ?" "Sir, under your favour," replied David, who was too proud of his own polemical knowledge to call himself the follower of any one, "ye take me up before I fall down.

I canna see why I suld be termed a Cameronian, especially now that ye hae given the name of that famous and savoury sufferer, not only until a regimental band of souldiers, [H.