house, who heard his tale from the parlour, stepped forward, and welcomed the stranger hospitably to Ellengowan. The boy, made happy with half-a-crown, was dismissed to his cottage, the weary horse was conducted to a stall, and Mannering found himself in a few minutes seated by a comfortable supper, to which his cold ride gave him a hearty appetite.

CHAPTER II.

Comes me cranking in,

And cuts me from the best of all my land,
A huge half moon, a monstrous cantle out.

HENRY FOURTH, Part I.

THE Company in the parlour at Ellangowan, consisted of the Laird himself, and a sort of person who might be the village schoolmaster, or perhaps the minister's assistant; his appearance was too shabby to indicate the minister, consider ing he was on a visit to the Laird.

The Laird himself was one of those second-rate sort of persons, that are to be found frequently in rural situations. Fielding has described one class as feras consumere nati; but the love of fieldsports indicates a certain activity of mind, which had forsaken Mr. Bertram, if he ever possessed it. A good-humoured listlessness of countenance, formed the only remarkable expression of his features, although they were rather handsome than otherwise. In fact, his physiognomy expressed the inanity of character which pervaded his life. I will give the reader some insight into his state and conversation, before he has finished a long lecture

to Mannering, upon the propriety and comfort of wrapping his stirrup-irons round with a wisp of straw, when he had occasion to ride in a chill even ing

Godfrey Bertram, of Ellangowan, succeeded to a long pedigree and a short rent-roll, like many lairds of that period. His list of forefathers ascended so high, that they were lost in the barbarous ages of Galwegian independence; so that his genealogical tree, besides the christian and crusading names of Godfreys, and Gilberts, and Dennis's, and Rolands, without end, bore heathen fruit of yet darker ages,-Arths, and Knarths, and Donagilds, and Hanlons. In truth, they had been formerly the stormy chiefs of a desart, but extensive domain, and the heads of a numerous tribe, called Mac-Dingawaie, though they afterwards adopted the Norman surname of Bertram. They had made war, raised rebellions, been defeated, beheaded, and hanged, as became a family of importance, for many centuries. But they had gradually lost ground in the world, and, from being themselves the heads of treason and traitorous conspiracies, the Bertrams, or Mac-Dingawaies of Ellangowan, had sunk into subordinate accomplices.Their most fatal exhibitions in this capacity took place in the seventeenth century, when the foul fiend possessed them with a spirit of contradiction which uniformly involved them in controversy with the ruling powers. They reversed the conduct of the celebrated vicar of Bray, and adhered as tenaciously to the weaker side, as that worthy divine

to the stronger. And, truly, like him, they had their reward.

Allan Bertram of Ellangowan, who flourished tempore Caroli primi, was, says my authoriry, Sir Robert Douglas, in his Scottish Baronage, (see the title Ellangowan,) "a steady loyalist, and full of zeal for the cause of his sacred majesty, in which he united with the great Marquis of Montrose, and other truly zealous and honorable patriots, and sustained great losses in that behalf. He had the honor of knignthood conferred upon him by his most sacred majesty, and was sequestrated as a malignant by the parliament, 1642, and afterward as a resolutioner, in the year 1648."-These two cross-grained epithets of malignant and resolutioner cost poor Sir Allan one half of the family estate.His son Dennis Bertram married a daughter of an eminent fanatic, who had a seat in the council of state, and saved by that union the remainder of the family property. But, as ill chance would have it, he became enamoured of the lady's principles as well as of her charms, and my author gives him this character: "He was a man of eminent parts and resolution, for which reason he was chosen by the western counties one of the committee of noblemen and gentlemen, to repor*. their griefs to the privy council of Charles II. anent the coming in of the Highland host in 1678.” For undertaking this patriotic task he underwent a fine, to pay which he was obliged to mortgage half of the remaining moiety of his paternal property. This loss he might have recovered by dint of severe

economy, but upon the breaking out of Argyle's rebellion, Dennis Bertram was again suspected by government, apprehended, sent to Dunnotar Castle, on the coast of the Mearns, and there broke his neck in an attempt to escape from a subterranean habitation, called the Whig's Vault, in which he was confined with some eighty of the same persuasion. The appriser, therefore, (as the holder of a mortgage was then called,) entered upon possession, and, in the language of Hotspur," came me cranking in," and cut the family out of another monstrous cantle of their remaining property.

Donohoe Bertram, with somewhat of an Irish name, and somewhat of an Irish temper, succeeded to the diminished property of Ellangowan. He turned out of doors the Rev. Aaron Macbriar, his mother's chaplain, (it is said they quarrelled about the good graces of a milk-maid,) drank himself daily drunk with brimming healths to the king, council, and bishops; held orgies with the Laird of Lagg, Theophilus Oglethorpe, and Sir James urner; and lastly took his grey gelding, and ned Clavers at Killie-krankie. At the skirmish Dunkeld, 1689, he was shot dead by a Camenian with a silver button' (being supposed to have oof from the Evil Ore against lead and steel,) d his grave is still called the "Wicked Laird's lir."

His son, Lewis, had more prudence than seems ually to have belonged to the family. He nursI what property was yet left to him; for DonoDe's excesses, as well as fines and forfeitures, had

made another inroad upon the estate. And although even he did not escape the fatality which induced the Lairds of Ellangowan to interfere in politics, he had yet the prudence, ere he went out with Lord Kenmore in 1715, to convey his estate to trustees, in order to parry pains and penalties, in case the Earl of Mar could not put down the protestant succession. But Scylla and Charybdisa word to the wise-he only saved his estate at expense of a law-suit, which again subdivided the family property. He was, however, a man of resolution. He sold part of the lands, evacuated the old castle, where the family lived in their decadence, as a mouse (said an old farmer) lives under a firlot. Pulling down part of these venerable ruins, he built a narrow house of three stories height, with a front like a grenadier's cap, two windows on each side, and a door in the midst, full of all manner of cross lights. This was the New Place of Ellangowan, in which we left our hero, better amused, perhaps, than our readers, and to this Lewis Bertram retreated, full of projects for re-establishing the prosperity of his family. He took some land into his own hand, rented some from neighbouring proprietors, bought and sold Highland cattle and Cheviot sheep, rode to fairs and trysts, fought hard bargains, and held necessity at the staff's end as well as he might. But what he gained in purse he lost in honour; for such agricultural and commercial negociations were very ill looked upon by his brother lairds, who minded nothing but cock-fighting, hunting, coursing, and