CHAPTER SECOND.
Where longs to fall yon rifted spire, As weary of the insulting air,-- The poet's thoughts, the warrior's fire, The lover's sighs, are sleeping there.
Langhorne.
At the first Scotch town which we reached, my guide sought out his friend and counsellor, to consult upon the proper and legal means of converting into his own lawful property the "bonny creature," which was at present his own only by one of those sleight-of-hand arrangements which still sometimes took place in that once lawless district.

I was somewhat diverted with the dejection of his looks on his return.

He had, it seems, been rather too communicative to his confidential friend, the attorney; and learned with great dismay, in return for his unsuspecting frankness, that Mr.Touthope had, during his absence, been appointed clerk to the peace of the county, and was bound to communicate to justice all such achievements as that of his friend Mr.Andrew Fairservice.

There was a necessity, this alert member of the police stated, for arresting the horse, and placing him in Bailie Trumbull's stable, therein to remain at livery, at the rate of twelve shillings (Scotch) per diem, until the question of property was duly tried and debated.

He even talked as if, in strict and rigorous execution of his duty, he ought to detain honest Andrew himself; but on my guide's most piteously entreating his forbearance, he not only desisted from this proposal, but made a present to Andrew of a broken-winded and spavined pony, in order to enable him to pursue his journey.