town.

might have elapsed, when he awoke with a sudden fright -nothing uncommon when the blood is fevered. He heard the clock strike twelve-an event which was immediately announced by the watchman to the whole Frank listened for a while, then turned himself warmly in bed, and was about to address himself again to sleep, when he heard, in the distance as it were, the creaking of a door, and immediately thereafter a heavy sound, as if it had been violently banged to. "O mercy, mercy!" thought he, "here comes the ghost. Pooh! it is only the wind." But the sound came nearer and nearer, like the heavy tread of a man. There was a jingling accompaniment, as from a convict's chain or a porter's bunch of keys. It was no passing gust of wind; the blood rushed to his heart till it thumped like a smith's hammer.

The affair was now past a joke. Had terror allowed the poor terrified devil to recollect his treaty with the innkeeper, he would have rushed to the window and bawled lustily for assistance. As he was, however, too irresolute for such a decided measure, he betook himself to the mattrass-the last refuge of the terrified-on the same principle that the ostrich thrusts its head into some thicket when it can no longer fly before the huntsman. But without, one door after another was opened and shut with a dreadful clatter. At last it came to the sleeping apartment. There was rattling and shaking at the door, many keys were tried; at last the right one was found, but still the bolt held; so a sturdy kick, which resounded in Frank's ears like a clap of thunder, was applied-away crashed the bolt, and the door flew wide to the wall. A tall thin man, with a black beard, in an antique costume, and with a gloomy expression of countenance, entered. His eyebrows were contracted into an expression of sullen solemnity. He wore a scarlet mantle depending over his left shoulder, and a high peaked hat on his head. He crossed the chamber three times with slow heavy tread, looked at the candles, and snuffed them. He then threw off his mantle, took from his side a barber's pouch, took out the shaving apparatus, and drew his glittering razor busily along the strap he carried at his girdle.

Frank lay all this while sweating under the mattrass, recommending himself to the Virgin's protection, and speculating regarding the comparative probability of this manœuvre having reference to his beard or his throat. To his unspeakable consolation, the spectre, having poured water out of a silver flask into a silver basin, whisked up a lather with his skinny hand, placed a chair, and solemnly beckoned the trembling spy upon his actions to come from his hiding-place.

It was as impossible to remonstrate against this hint, as for an exiled vizier to resist the angel of death, which the sultan sends after him in the shape of a bowstring. In such extreme cases, the most rational line of conduct is of course to yield to necessity, smile at the disagreeable joke, and acquiesce in the operation of strangling. Frank honoured the draft upon his obedience, threw away the mattrass, sprung from the bed, and took his place upon the chair. Wonderful as this sudden transition from terror to resolution may appear, the editor of the Psychological Journal will no doubt be able to explain it in the turning of a straw.

The spectral barber tied a cloth round the neck of his trembling customer, seized comb and scissars, and clipped away at his hair and beard. He then soaped in the most scientific manner, first his chin, then his eyebrows, and finally the whole head, after which he shaved him from the crown to the throat, as bare as a skull. Having finished the job, he washed the head, dried it carefully, made his bow, tied up his apparatus, wrapped himself up in his cloak, and prepared to depart. Frank was not a little annoyed at the loss of his flowing locks, nevertheless he breathed more freely, for he felt as if the incubus had done all he was permitted to do.

It was so, indeed. Redmantle retired, dumb as he had approached-a most perfect contrast to his professional brethren of our day. He had not, however, advanced three steps towards the door, when he stopped, looked round with a woful gesture at him he had shaved so well, and stroaked his long black beard. He repeated the pantomime when he had reached the door. It now struck Frauk that the poor ghost wished a favour at his hands, and a rapid association of ideas suggested that it might wish to be paid in kind.

As the ghost, notwithstanding his woe-begone expression of countenance, appeared more inclined for a jest than any thing serious, all fear had now left its victim. He resolved to obey the suggestion of his fancy, and beckoned to the spectre to assume the seat from which he had just arisen. It obeyed instantly, threw off its red mantle, placed the shaving apparatus on the table, and seated itself in the attitude of a man who wishes to get quit of his beard. Frank followed exactly the routine which bad been observed in his case, clipped the beard and hair, lathered the whole head, his ghostship sitting the whole time as steady as a barber's block. The awkward wight was but a bad hand at the razor, (he never before had touched one,) so he shaved the beard against the hair, whereby the ghost made as strange grimaces as the ape of Erasmus, when he emulated his master in the self-infliction of the same delicate operation. The inexperienced blunderer began to feel strange, and thought of the proverb, “let the shoemaker stick to his last." He put, however, a good countenance on the matter, and shaved the spectre as bald as himself.

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Up to this moment, the business had been conducted on the footing of a pantomime. "Stranger," said the unearthly being, with a graceful and cordial bow, accept my best thanks for the service you have done me. Through your means am I at last freed from the long imprisonment within this withered and marrowless frame, to which my soul has been doomed on account of my misdeeds.

"Know that these walls were once inhabited by a reckless lord, who gratified his whims alike at the expense of clergy and laity. Count Hartmann was his name; he was no man's friend, acknowledged no law, no master, and was unrestrained in his humours even by the sacred laws of hospitality. He allowed no stranger, who sought the shelter of his roof, no beggar who came for charity, to depart, without playing them some ill-natured trick. I was his barber, and the creature of his moods. It was my custom to inveigle every pious pilgrim who passed into the castle, and when he expected princely treatment, to shave him bald, and turn him with mockery from the door. Then Count Hartmann would look from his window, and see with delight how the viper's brood of village boys mocked the abused saints, calling them bald-head. Then the old practical joker laughed till his huge belly shook again, and his eyes swam in tears.

"One day there came a holy man from far away countries: he carried a heavy cross on his shoulder, and had, out of devotion, pierced his feet and hands with nails; his hair was trimmed so as to resemble the crown of thorns. He begged, in passing, for some water to his feet, and a bit of bread. I led him in, and, profane wretch that I was! shaved away his sacred circlet of hair. Then the pious pilgrim spoke a heavy curse over me. 'Know, evildoer, that after death, heaven and hell, and purgatory itself, shall alike be shut against thy soul. It shall haunt these walls, teasing every one as in life was thy pleasure, until some wanderer, more bold than his fellows, shall dare, undesired, to retaliate.'

"I fell sick immediately, the marrow dried in my bones, and I withered away to the shadow you see. In vain did I wait for relief; for know, when the bond between life and the soul has been snapped, it longs, with a lover's longing, for the place of rest; and this intense passion turns its years to eternities. To my own torture

was I now obliged to carry on the joke, which during my life was a source of pleasure to me. Alas! my mischievous pranks soon drove every human being from the house. At long intervals only some stray pilgrim would pass the night here. I served them all exactly as I have done you, but none of them dared return the compliment, and free me from my slavery. The castle is now freed from my nightly pranks,-what a sleep I shall have! Again receive my thanks, young stranger. Were I the guardian of concealed treasures, I would freely yield them all to thee, but I was in my life nothing more than a poor barber. But listen to my prayer, and when you return to your home, get a couple of masses read for my soul's sake."

With these words he disappeared, having fully vindicated by his talkativeness his claim to the title of ci-devant barber to the noble master of Castle Rummelsburg. His liberator remained full of wonder at the strange adventure. He tried to persuade himself it was all a dream, but his bald pate was too decisive an argument to be called in question. Having made up his mind on this weighty matter, he crept back to bed, and, fatigued by his terror yet more than by his journey, slept like a top till next mid-day.

The treacherous landlord was stirring with the dawn, that he might not miss his opportunity of laughing in his sleeve at the stranger, under the pretence of condoling with him. By the time mid-day had arrived, he began to feel anxious: the ghost might have strangled the poor youth, or frightened him to death, and Boniface had never dreamt of stretching his revenge so far. He assembled the posse comitatus of his household, marched up to the castle, and made straight for the chamber, in the window of which he had observed the stranger's light burning. He found a strange, old-fashioned key in the lock, but the door was barred within; this Frank had taken care to do immediately after the ghost's departure. Mine host drummed on the door with a hubbub of feet, hands, head, and shoulders, that might have awakened the seven sleepFrank's first idea, which crossed him as he rubbed his eyes, was, that the barber had returned. As soon, however, as he heard the landlord's whimpering entreaty, that his guest would condescend to give a sign that he was alive, he collected himself, and opened the door.

ers.

The landlord clasped his hands above his head, with an affectation of astonishment. "By the whole regiment of saints! Redmantle" (the spectre was known among the inhabitants by this name) "has been here, and made a bald pate of you. I see now that the old story is no fable. Now, tell me, how did he look? what said he? and what has he done?" Frank, who saw through the speaker, replied: "The ghost resembled a man in a red mantle ; what he has done you see; and what he said, that I remember well. 'Stranger,' said he to me, 'trust no knavish landlord-the rascal down the way knew right well what was awaiting you. Farewell, I am quitting these quarters, for my time is out. I am now to change my character for that of a noiseless mischief-maker, and as for the landlord, I will tease him incessantly, nip his nose, pull his hair, sit on his breast like a nightmare, if he do not, in return for his treatment of you, allow free roof bield, and the run of his larder, until brown ringlets again twine themselves round your temples.'"

The host trembled at these words, made the sign of the cross in double quick time, and swore by the Virgin, to say nothing of a round dozen of saints whom he threw into the bargain, that he would board and feed our adventurer for nothing, so long as he chose to remain. He would have conducted him immediately to the inn, but Frank preferred the baronial apartments. A dare-devil from the town ventured to keep him company over night, and escaped the shaving which, in former days, would have been his reward. The owner of the castle, rejoiced to find it once more inhabitable, gave directions that the stranger should be well cared for.

When the grapes began to colour, and the apples to blush, Frank's brown locks were again in a condition to be seen. He packed up his knapsack, and prepared for his departure. When he took leave of the landlord, that worthy led from the stable a stout roadster, duly caparisoned, which the lord of the manor presented to him, out of gratitude that he had driven the devil from his house. The gift was accompanied by a good fat purse, and, by their united aid, our hero in a short time reached his native town in good condition.

law was respected but that of the stronger; save that now and then an indirect and temporary ascendency was procured by money for its owner.

horrence. Dumfries, either that she entertained a sneaking kindness for the said "salt-water captain," or that she wished to sink even the memory of one pretty nearly related to her, vented her righteous wrath upon Tom Paine.

་

Have patience, gentle reader, we are coming to the point. The amiable office of hangman, or high priest, if you will, on these occasions, generally devolved on the juvenile fraternity of what in country towns are emphatically termed blackguards. The funds for defraying the expenses incurred were collected by a general assessment, raised by appointed members of that worshipful corporation, who for weeks before the Birthday paraded the streets, addressing every well-dressed passenger with— "Eh, gie 's a haupeny to burn Tam Paine !" On the morning of the day they were peculiarly urgent. We are not aware that any charge of misappropriation of the fund was ever brought against any member of this very

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a holyday at school, but every one around us was pursuing the even tenor of his daily occupations. There was nothing to look at, nothing to excite an interestwe thought only of the evening. Sometimes a chance pistol might be heard going off, or some little, dirty, barelegged devil-some future Davy or Newton-might be seen sitting in a corner, experimenting upon a small pile of gunpowder with a burning-glass.

There was, indeed, one way of spending the day-and it kept us active and pleased-but it was none of the most dignified, and we were soon shamed out of it. The Scots, it is well known, are a very humane people, and have, on this account, always been addicted to burning people in effigy. I cannot say that I much admire the practice. It certainly is an improvement upon the system pursued by our ancestors of burning in person, but it keeps the feeling alive; and, as Humboldt supposes that some South American tribes have been reconciled to anthropophagy by the practice of eating roasted monkeys, who can say that the habit of burning the figure may not one day revive the wish to try the experiment upon a real man? I cannot say much in favour of the late (allegorical) incremations of certain obnoxious politicians, but I cannot forget that the mob was spirited on by the present sufferers, to the same humane practice upon democrats, in days not yet faded from the memory of most of us, when blacknebs stood in pretty nearly the same popular odour that anti-reformers seem to do at present. Surely this reflection ought to teach mutual forbearance -one cannot say whose turn may be next.

The reader thinks by this time that we have forgotten what we intended to say. He never was more mistaken —we have described a wide circle, and have come back to our starting-place as unerringly as the leg of a compass when performing the same operation. The good people of Scotland, in virtue of the amiable propensity we have above adverted to, have, time out of mind, been in the habit of solemnizing their king's natal day by a burntoffering of a man of clouts. [Can this be a relic of the Druidical practice of offering up human sacrifices?] The victim seems to have been selected upon different principles in the various districts of the country. Edinburgh, conspicuous for her attachment to old customs, continued to burn "Johnnie Wilkes" long after both he and the monarch, in whose nostrils the savour of such a sacrifice night have been deemed acceptable, had been gathered to their fathers. Ayr consumed Paul Jones-it was natural that a seaport should hold this bold renegade in ab

affected by the Reform bill,) nathless their importunity on the last day of their harvest has sometimes caused ungenerous suspicions to flash across our mind. It seemed as if they were anxious to obtain a surplus that might be quietly divided among themselves.

We are now come to the point. There was, it is true, in the town where we were educated, a good constitutional feud kept up between the schoolboys and the blackguards -one of those wholesome social anomalies which are so much admired-one of those safety-valves by which the excess of passionate energy is allowed to escape without seriously endangering the public tranquillity. To use the classical language of the High School, we were constantly engaged in bickers. Nevertheless, there were intervals of truce, and the mediators were generally of the class of bipeds I have attempted to describe-scions of the working-classes, whose parents sent them to school at intervals, as their circumstances admitted, and who thus came to belong alternately to either class. There was also a petty traffic carried on between the two communities, in rabbits, pigeons, boats, and pet craws and pyets. In short, our hostility was not of the ruthless and exterminating character of an Indian feud: it was rather like the legitimate alternations of war and truce observed by two European states. Well, good readerfor gentle we can call you no longer-here is what we have so long been driving at. We have occasionally known individuals of the gentle faction, rather than spend the livelong day in idleness, join with their quondam adversaries in the elegant and insinuating task of begging.

Between six and seven, the hard-handed artisans, having finished their daily task, began to congregate in knots about the cross. Schoolboys might be seen flitting about restlessly in the vacant interstices, the pockets of their sailor jackets bulging out with squibs and fizz-ba's. Women were standing at the mouths of closes with children in their arms. Dropping pistol-shots were heard in the outskirts of the momentarily-accumulating crowd. On the plainstones a few adventurous urchins were setting off pluffs. Every now and then you saw a group of tradeslads with their hands in their pockets, or under their aprons, and leaning against the wall at a corner, startled, and for a moment dispersed, by a cracker thrown among their feet.

The magistrates now began to thread their way through the crowd towards the Trades' Hall, in order to drink his majesty's health. Douce honest men! shall we ever see their like under any other system? There was Bailie, so round that he almost required two of the town officers to thrust him through the folding-doors of the hall. F, who never permitted a mortal but his old gaunt housekeeper to see the interior of his dwelling, went clothed in a threadbare suit of grey, fitting closely to his lank form, and on one occasion walked home with his new umbrella under his coat, lest it should be spoiled by an unexpected shower of rain. He

was treasurer of the burgh, and as unwilling to disburse one halfpenny of its income, as of his own. This was not selfishness, for he accounted honourably for the uttermost farthing; nor was it regard for the public interest; it was sheer inability to spend. It was not the accident of birth, nor straitened circumstances, that obliged Fto drudge through life the inmate of a faded mansion in a ruinous street, immersed in dry accounts. He was born to a considerable landed property. But to collect and handle money-his own or another's-was to him happiness, and he made his choice accordingly. Widely different from F— was the dean of guild, a lawyer, but more given to black letter than the forms of practice; one who acquired a reputation for learning by poring over what no one else cared for, and for business talent by being obstinate and overbearing. The provost was a private banker in a small way-a man who had raised himself to that dignity in virtue of his being a complete bundle of negatives. He was neither shrewd nor intelligent, he was not enterprising, he was not well connected, he was not plausible in his manners, and, as the old ladies of the burgh would remark over their dish of tea-" God knows, he wasna bonnie." Yet he drudged on, adding penny to penny, until he grew rich, and was looked upon as a man of consequence, and was invited to fill the civic chair, and allowed to bring his relations and dependants into the town-council, and thus to constitute himself sovereign of the little republic for life. He continued sheepish and ungainly after his elevation, but was not without a consciousness of his dignity. Once do we remember to have heard him at the table of a friend of ours enquire exultingly at the child he had taken on his knee-for he was kind as he was shapeless-while the little innocent shrunk from his ape-like grimace, "Whether she had ever sat upon a lord's knee before?" The rest of our rulers were men of little mark.

There was a respectful making-way among the crowd before each magistrate. The burghers, young and old, were too shrewd to have any idolatrous reverence for them, and not unfrequently did the good men contrive to elevate themselves for a short period to an eminent degree of unpopularity. But withal, there was a kindly feeling towards them on the part of the population as good neighbours, and an instinctive or inherited respect for the offices they filled. This good will, however, did not always prevent some unlucky brats from letting off a cracker among the shins of one or other of them as he advanced towards the banqueting hall, or the assembled citizens from laughing in their sleeves at the unwonted alacrity with which the old gentleman skipped about, emulous of the fidgety firework.

One or two occurrences of this kind reminded the nagistrates of what they had either forgotten amid the lusiness of the day, or intentionally overlooked. One of the town officers was now sent out to intimate to the a sembled multitude, by tuck of drum, that it was prohbited, under all sorts of penalties, to throw any kind of fieworks, or kindle bonfires on the streets. This was the long-expected signal for commencing. Generally befor the worthy official had concluded his harangue, there wa a squib sticking in a corner of his three-cocked hat, casting up a brilliant stream of sparks, like some magical featler. Others were whizzing in all directions about his ars.

He was obliged to decamp without beat of drun, although the instrument hung by his side. The spaceround the Cross now presented a lively scene. It was cowded with merry, good-humoured faces. Every window that looked out upon it, was filled with spectators. All eyes were busy following the earth-born stars as they ascended with a rotatory motion and whizzing sound, r darted off with a fierce impetuous gush. Then there was jostling and screaming where they fell, and sometimes a quib, thrown with malice prepense, would produce a ninor earthquake among the crowd. But all was in good humour, and rude jokes were bandied backwards

and forwards. Over heads came thick and frequent the huzzas of our loyal rulers, as each welcome toast was given.

But the most gaudy show of the night is yet to come, for the hurried trampling of many feet is heard, and from the Vennel there emerges a band of jolly sailors, the foremost bearing on his head a barrel, out of which the tar has but lately been taken, a huge volume of flame roaring out at its upper end. Some of his companions twitch it from behind, and down it goes upon the backs, and rolls among the feet of the bystanders, who give way before it, half-screaming, half-laughing,—the numerous closes on either side swallowing them up, to emerge again as soon as the danger is past. On go the jolly sons of ocean rolling their portable bonfire, which cuts a way for itself through the crowd, as silently and surely as the prow of their good ship cuts the water. On they go, leaving in their wake huge pools of blazing liquid, till, at one time rolling their cask against a knot of citizens, at another time jerking it up and pitching it upon them, they have fairly made the circuit of the town.

They now return to the Cross, nigh to which they deposit the staves of their barrel, which cannot, in the course of nature, be expected to hold much longer together. Every boy present now comes forward with his hoarded stock of firewood, and piles it upon the blazing heap. The unfortunate gentleman in tattered clothes, who has the whole day been paraded about town on a handbarrow, begging money to burn himself-a northern impersonation of an Indian suttee-is brought forward and deposited on the summit. An interval succeeds, during which the pile emits nothing but huge volumes of smoke; but there the ruddy flame bursts forth at last, and the assembled crowd is distinctly seen as in the daylight; every window mirrors back the glare, and in the background the old black steeple stands out like a spectre from amid the gloom.

The exuberant mirth of the people has by this time evaporated. They are rapidly becoming fatigued and sedate. They gaze, with quiet complacency, on the bright blaze,—on the dark shadows of the figures which flit between them and the fire. The mass is insensibly becoming less dense. The brands begin to burn low, and here come the constables to extinguish them, lest accidents might occur from fragments of flame being driven about by the wind. Some stanch fire-haunters are, however, determined not yet to separate, and a battle royal ensues, in which the baton of the constable is opposed to the halfcharred and still flaming brand. Neither party are, however, very inveterate, and in half-an-hour, darkness and quiet reign through the deserted streets.

Amid all this, there was scarcely one personal feeling towards the king. Every one was seeking his own amusement, and gladly seized at the holyday as an excuse for idling and indulging. Yet there was a quiet under-current of devotion to the throne, which needed but to be called in question to make it overflow. Is this the case now? A cold cloud has intervened for a time between the throne and the people: it has been dissipated, and all are full of professions of exaggerated loyalty. But does this promise to be as enduring as the more tranquil feeling for which it has been substituted? Personal attachment it is not-little is known of the king. That an increased devotion to the throne has sprung up among us is equally improbable. The acclaim is bestowed neither upon William nor the king, but upon him who has beat down power obnoxious to the majority. Will the good will, engendered by standing side to side during a short contest, remain long after peace has returned ? The question is one of no ordinary moment. There is a much shorter passage from violent endearment to hatred, than from indifference.

These may seem impertinent doubts, on such a day as this; but though the Bystander be not most vociferous with his lip loyalty, it is because he feels deeply. The throne is in England the banner round which the friends