THE NEW YORK 160875 ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FOUNDATIONS. 1899. Southern District of New-York, sa. BE IT REMEMBERED, That on the 28th day of May, in the fort eighth year of the Independence of the United States of America, J. & HARPER, of the said District, bave deposited in this office the title of a Boo the right whereof they claim as proprietors, in the words following, to wit: "(oslington Shadow: a Romance of the Nineteenth Century. By Mung Coultershoggle, Esq. In two volumes." In conformity to the Act of Congress of the United States, entitled "A Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such copies, during the tim therein mentioned;" and also to an Act, entitled "An Act, supplementary to an Act, entitled An Act for the encouragement of Learning, by securing the copies of Maps, Charts, and Books, to the authors and proprietors of such cc pies, during the times therein mentioned, and extending the benefits there to the arts of designing, engraving, and etching historical and other prints GOSLINGTON SHADOW. CHAPTER I. THE SLUGGARD. No cheerful breeze this sullen region knows, POPE. ALTHOUGH We do not seek to conceal our partiality to those rural concerns and habits which others of a more refined taste and more enlightened minds than we have the vanity to assume to ourselves, have denominated by the appellation of rustic and vulgar, yet as we do not altogether coincide in our opinion with Laird Shadow, in holding all literature and polite learning in contempt, nor in speaking of the polished habits of those of the higher circles, or of those in better circumstances, who dwell in cities, as effeminate or flimsy fopperies, unworthy the attention of a man of sound understanding. We therefore consider the Laird, now that he might look on himself as a man of large property, as carrying things too far, in expecting that his son and heir should have imbibed the same humble ideas as he did respecting his apparel and personal appearance, or that he should bave taken any interest in casting peats or divots, or that if Goslington, having spent an hour at his toilet, in shaving himself, perfuming and brushing his soft glossy hair, and smoothing his jet black whiskers on his cheeks, like most other modern young gentlemen, should have laid aside his Virgil, or Horace, or even one of the Waverley novels, or a new poem of Lord Byron's, and in his elegant Wellington boots, which Will Waddell, being an old soldier, had polished as bright as a new dollar, should have walked with him a mile or two through the moors and mosses, putting himself into a sweat in jumping over dykes and gullies, half-way up to the knees in mud-this was not to have been expected. Goslington in his shooting dress, having on his strong half boots and leather gaiters, during the shooting season, did occasionally, with his gun, traverse the moors in search of game from sunrise till sunset; but besides his love of the sport, it was a gentlemanly amusement, a very good reason in itself, independent of all others, why he should have followed it, even if it had only been a drudgery to him instead of a pleasure. Indeed, Peggy did, one morning, tell her father "not to put himself into such a terrible tirrevee, for her brother was writing a letter to Lady Rosa, which she was to take with her to Edinburgh, and that if he was busy, and it did not suit him to go himself and see if the peats were dry enough for leading, that Mr. Rifleman, never having seen the way in which turf was prepared for fuel, was desirous to witness it ;" adding, "if there's any of them blown down I'll soon set them up on end." "Keep on end yoursel', Meg," said the Laird, hardly ever suffering any thing to pass which af forded him the opportunity of exercising his sarcastic humour. "But," continued he, "am only in daffing, Peggy, and mean na ill; get yoursel' ready, for I want you to take a walk with Mr. Rifleman and me, o'er to the Snawtown, to bid the Whult and his family fareweel, and tell Goslington to take and ride the pony o'er that length wi' us; Will Waddell shall put the saddle and bridle on for him." The Laird had a double meaning in paying this visit, for besides Peggy's bidding them good-by, he had a mind that Goslington should see the ruinous condition of the Whult's premises, from his slothful idleness, in allowing the farm to lay in waste, and the homestead to tumble down, rather than to be at the trouble to keep them in repair. The falling in of the roof of the house on a stormy night, when the Whult and the wife were in bed, afforded the Laird many a hearty laugh as he told the story; and although he had told it a hundred times, and to a hundred people, he once more told it to Jonathan and Peggy, on their way to the Whult's. he, As they took across the fields at the nearest, a footpath between the Laird's house and the Whult's, leading in that direction, "Ae stormy night," said the Whult and the wife ware gane to bed, whan a loud puff o' wun blew in the roof on the top o' them; the Whult got on his hands and knees, and set his back against the kebbars and the divots that lay on him, calling out to his wife who was also using her exertions to extricate herself, prize, Bell-prize, Bell: the wife," continued he, "did get out at last, but the Whult had to bide whare he was, grunting and hauden up his back like a muckle sow, till she came o'er and got me to help him out frae amang the rubbish." 6 Goslington being on horseback, had to keep the road, which followed a more circuitous route, and VOL. II. riding leisurely at a foot pace, like most other gay young gentlemen, he seemed to take a great pleasure in looking down at his lower extremities, with which, to do justice to his horsemanship, he bestrode the pony most gracefully, and even the little animal appeared conscious that it carried a personage of more than usual importance. Indeed, the little sheltie, in his new caparisons, and the noble attitude of his rider, were very conspicuous even at a distance, so that no one could have been at a loss to have discovered at first sight that the person on horseback was a young gentleman of distinction. The Laird having a mind to entertain Mr. Rifleman with a still further account of the delapidation of the Whult's premises, next related to him the story of the cleaning of his Augean stable, of which all that he now saw standing were the naked walls. "The Whult," observed the Laird, "had a cowt that stood in the stable till the midden on the outside and the muck inside, closed the door up sae that he could na get it out again without being at o'er muckle trouble for him to be at; so the cowt gat leave to stay in, and they gied it its feed and water in at a hole i' the wa'; at last the cowt dee't, and by and by, the roof fell in neist. The stable then was used, in rough weather, as an open shed for the stirks and the queys to rin in and out o' whan they liket; and the Whult, although he's but a lazy body, to speak the truth," continued the Laird, who on no account, to his knowledge, would have been guilty of prevarication," was a religious sort o' bodie as weel as a wee sleepy-headed, and he was ne'er nice o' his company, for he was ance ta'en up amang a gang o' tinklers, for being ae day fun' sitting by a dyke back, cracken awa as freely as if he had been ane o' them himsel; sae he used |