discretion of the judge, although no wound was inflicted.

This was unluckily overlooked altogether: as regards civilians, no thought was taken how the lost remedy and protection were to be replaced; and the military authorities, instead of making the mess-room a mode have allowed it to degenerate into about the worst school of manners in which a lad can commence his social education. Let the becoming tone be inculcated and maintained, and we shall hear no more of personal indignities in the guise of practical jokes, nor be deliberately told, on the authority of an aristocratic corps, that the correct mode of resenting an insult is a resort

These provisions, civil and military, would probably have fallen into desuetude or neglect like many former laws framed for the same purpose, unless opinion-at all events the loud, clamorous, unreflecting opinion of the majority-had gone along with them. The forbidden practice was simultaneously discredited by one or two fatal instances of its extension beyond the pale of gentility, as well as by the ridicule adroitly turned upon it from the intervention of a cock-pheasant prior to a bloodless meeting. Whilst one set of objectors to fisticuffs and kicks. Society also may do urged the wanton exposure or sacrifice much by placing rude or offensive language of life, another expatiated on the absurd- and conduct under the severest ban; ity of a pre-arranged ceremony or farce, whilst judges and juries must co-operate by and pointed to the very small percentage visiting personal violence with a heavier of deaths or casualties. Sir Jonah Bar- amount of punishment than has been their rington states that not less than two hun- wont. We are obviously not yet so far dred and twenty-seven official and memora- ahead of the rest of the civilized world as ble duels were fought during his grand cli- was vainly fancied; and it is peccliarly inmacteric. The resulting loss in oratory, cumbent on those who called so loudly for statesmanship, and official eminence was the virtual abolition of the point of honour, nil; yet the check, the penalty, the ultima to prevent the triumph of their opinions ratio of wounded honour, the arbitration from turning out premature and transicourt for injuries not susceptible of legal rem- tory. edy, were steadily and consistently upheld.

THE INS AND OUTS OF AN ENGAGEMENT. The intelligent study of that portion of the Law Reports which is occupied with trials for breach of promise may well serve to bring home to the male intellect how weak a creature is man, even under the most favorable conditions. It may be safely assumed that a gentleman who has made up his mind to break off an engagement, without any particular ground for doing so, is not troubled with an over nice sense of honor or any morbid tenderness of conscience; and yet this immense advantage of freedom from those irritating restraints under which men of less philosophical temper are left to chafe seems, in a large number of cases, to be utterly useless to its possessor. He may be supposed, in this instance at least, to know his own mind, for, however easy it may be to drift into an engagement, it is anything but easy to drift out of one. He can survey the whole field of action at his leisure, choose the precise ground on which to offer battle, and weigh with all imaginable forethought the various methods of picking a quarrel with his mistress. It might seem that, with all these advantages on his side, he could hardly fail of attaining the latter object. Even on the supposition, justified perhaps by the subsequent action, that the lady is determined to keep her prize at all hazards, he has still only to act in such a manner as to convince her that she may safely trifle with him, and her sportsmanlike

taste for playing with the fish which she has so nearly landed may be trusted to do the rest. It is hardly likely that the intercourse of the lovers will not furnish at least one occasion on which she will offer a loophole through which he may wriggle out if he is so inclined. It is strange, indeed, if a woman's tongue will not give some opportunity for escape to a man who is anxious to take her at her word. But, from some cause or other, all these chances seem to come to nothing. The suitor is, it would appear, predestined to be the defendant in a breach of promise case; and he goes placidly to work to make his calling and election sure. Though his obvious policy would be to make the rejection seem the lady's work, he is for the most part studiously solicitous to establish that it is all his own. As often as not, he does the business by letter, as though to supply every possible link which can be wanted for the evidence against him; or, if he prefers to make the announcement in his own person, he has probably allowed his attentions to grow cool for some time beforehand, and thus given her warning that she is not to tempt success too far. The accumulated experience of so many trials is as useless to each new defendant as other people's experience is commonly found to be, and the record of his artless movements reads for all the world as though he had taken each successive step by the advice of the plaintiff's attorney.

PART XVI.

CHAPTER XLVI.

life consisted in a repetition over and over of the same things, the same thoughts, pretty nearly the same words. To be sure, he had a wife, and children, and domestic happiness; but Colin, at his time of life, made but a secondary account of that. He looked at the manse accordingly with a smile as he passed on out of sight. The manse of Lafton was not nearly so lovely, but it was different; though perhaps he could not have told how. And the same thought was in his mind as he went on past all the tranquil houses. How did they manage to keep existing, those people for whom life was over, who had ceased to look beyond the day, or

It was, as we have said, a lovely summer morning when Colin set out on his excursion, after the fatigues of the winter and spring. His first stage was naturally Ramore, where he arrived the same evening, having picked up Lauderdale at Glasgow on his way. A more beautiful evening had never shone over the Holy Loch; and, as the two friends approached Ramore, all the western sky was flaming behind the dark hills, which stood up in austere shadow, shutting out from the Loch and its immediate banks the later glories of the sunset. to anticipate either good or evil? To be To leave the eastern shore, where the light still lingered, and steal up under the shadow into the soft beginning of the twilight, with Ramore, that" shines where it stands," looking out hospitably from the brae, was like leaving the world of noise and commotion for the primitive life, with its silence and its thoughts; and so, indeed, Colin felt it, though his world was but another country parish, primitive enough in its ways. But then it must not be forgotten that there is a difference between the kingdom of Fife, where wheat grows golden on the broad fields, and where the herrings come up to the shore to be salted and packed in barrels, and the sweet Loch half hidden among the hills, where the cornfields arc scant and few, and where grouse and heather divide the country with the beasts and the pastures, and where, in short, Gaelic was spoken within the memory of man. Perhaps there was something of the vanity of youth in that look of observation and half amused, half curious criticism which the young man cast upon the peaceful manse, where the minister, who had red hair, had painfully begun his career when Colin himself was a boy. It was hard to believe that anything ever could happen in that calm house, thus reposing among its trees, with only a lawn between it and the church, and looking as peaceful and retired and silent as the church itself did. It is true Colin knew very well that things both bitter and joyful had happened there within his own recollection; but that did not prevent the thought striking him, as he glided past in the little bustling steamer, which somehow, by the contrast, gave a more absolute stillness to the pretty rural landscape. Perhaps the minister was walking out at that moment, taking his peaceful stroll along the dewy road, a man whose life was all fixed and settled long ago, to whom nothing could ever happen in his own person, and whose

sure this was very unreasonable musing; for Colin was aware that things did happen now and then on the Holy Loch. Somebody died occasionally, when it was impossible to help it, and by turns somebody was born, and there even occurred, at rare intervals, a marriage, with its suggestion of life beginning; but these domestic incidents were not what he was thinking of. Life seemed to be in its quiet evening over all that twilight coast; and then it was the morning with Colin, and it did not seem possible for him to exist without the hopes, and motives, and excitements which made ceaseless movement and commotion in his soul. To be sure, he too was only a country minister, and was expected to live and die among "his people" as peaceably as his prototype was doing on the Holy Loch; and this thought somehow it was that, falling into his mind like a humorous suggestion, made Colin smile; for his ideas did not take that peaceful turn at this period of his existence. He was so full of what had to be done, even of what he himself had to do, that the silence seemed to recede before him, and to rustle and murmur round him as he carried into it his conscious and restless life. He had even such a wealth of existence to dispose of that it kept flowing on in two or three distinct channels, a thing which amused him when he thought of it. For underneath all this sense of contrast, and Lauderdale's talk, and his own watch for the Ramore boat, and his mother at the door, No. 1 of the Tracts for the Times was at the same time shaping itself in Colin's brain; and there are moments when a man can stand apart from himself, and note what is going on in his own mind. He was talking to Lauderdale, and greeting the old friends who recognised him in the boat, and looking out for home, and planning his tract, and making that contrast between the evening and the morning all at the same moment.

allege onything against a man's morality I'm no so much heeding; and it's a poor kind of thing to be put in by a patron that doesna care a pin, and gangs to another kirk."

And at the same time he had taken off the front of his mental habitation, and was looking at all those different processes going on in its different compartments with a curious sense of amusement. Such were the occupations of his mind as he went up to the "I'm awfu' shaken in my mind about Loch, to that spot where the Ramore boat that," said the Mistress; "there's the Free lay waiting on the rippled surface. It was Kirk folk-though I'm no for making an a different homecoming from any that he example of them fighting among themhad ever made before." Formerly his pros- selves about their new minister, like thae pects were vague, and it never was quite puir senseless creatures in America. Thacertain what he might make of himself. mas, at the Mill-head, is for the ane candiNow he had fulfilled all the ambitions of his date, and his brother Dugald for the tither; family, as far as his position went. There and they're like to tear each other's een out was nothing more to hope for or to desire in when they meet. That's ill enough, but that particular; and, naturally, Colin felt Lafton's waur. I'm no for setting up priests, that his influence with his father and broth- nor making them a sacerdotal caste as some ers at least would be enhanced by the reali- folk say; but will you tell me," said Mrs. zation of those hopes, which, up to this time, Campbell, indignantly, "that a wheen ignohad always been mingled with a little un- rant weavers and canailye like that can certainty. He forgot all about that when judge my Colin? ay, or even if it was thae he grasped the hands of Archie and of the Fife farmers driving in their gigs. I would farmer, and dashed up the brae to where the like to ken what he studied for and took a Mistress stood wistful at the door; but, not- thae honours, and gave baith time and silwithstanding, there was a difference, and it ler, if he wasna to ken better than the like was one which was sufficiently apparent to of them. I'm no pretending to meddle all. As for his mother, she smoothed down with politics that are out of my way -- but the sleeve of his black coat with her kind I canna shut my een," the Mistress said, emhand, and examined with a tender smile the phatically. "The awfu' business is that we've cut of the waistcoat which Colin had brought nae respect to speak of for onything but from Oxford-though, to tell the truth, he ourselves; we're so awfu' fond of our ain bit had still a stolen inclination for "mufti," and poor opinions, and the little we ken. If wore his uniform only when a solemn occa- there was ony chance in our parish-and sion occurred like this, and on grand parade; the minister's far from weel, by a' I can but, for all her joy and satisfaction at sight hear- and that man round the point at the of him, the Mistress still looked a little shat- English chapel was na such an awfu' havetered and broken, and had never forgotten ril- I would be tempted to flee away out though Colin had forgotten it long ago—of their fechts and their objections, and get the "objections" of the parish of Lafton, and a quiet Sabbath-day there."

"I suppose a's weel now?" Mrs. Campbell said. "No that I could have any doubts in my own mind, so far as you were concerned; but, the mair experience a person has, the less hope they have in other folk -though that's an awfu' thing to say, and gangs against Scripture... Me that thought there was not a living man that could say a word of blame to my Colin! And to think of a' the lees that were invented. His father there says it's a necessary evil, and that we maun have popular rights; but for me I canna see the necessity. I'm no for doing evil that good may come," said the Mistress; "it's awfu' papistry that and to worry a poor callant to death, and drive a' that belongs to him out o' their wits-"

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all that her son had had " to come through," I'm no for buying peace so dear, for my as she said, "before he was placed." part," said Lauderdale; they're terrible haverils, most of the English ministers in our pairts, as the Mistress says. We're a' in a kind of dissenting way now-a-days, the mair's the pity. Whisht a moment, callant, and let a man speak. I'm no saying onything against dissent; it's a wee hard in its ways, and it has an awfu' opinion of itsel', and there's nae beauty in it that it should be desired; but, when your mind's made up to have popular rights and your ain way in everything, I canna see onything else for it,. for my part. It's pure democracy - that's what it is and democracy means naething else, as far as I'm informed, but the reign of them that kens the least and skreighs the loudest. It's no a bonnie spectacle, but I'm no a man that demands beauty under a conditions. Our friend the curate yonder," said Lauderdale, pointing his finger vaguely over his shoulder to indicate Wodensbourne,

"He's not dead yet," said the farmer, "nor me out of my ordinary. I'll not say it's pleasant; but so long as they canna

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIX. 1325.

"was awfu' taken up about his auld arches | that come warmest, and touch deepest to the and monuments- that's what you ca' the heart. chancel, I suppose; but as for our young But, meanwhile, and attending the end of minister here, though he's just as caring about the world, Colin, when he was settled for thae vanities, it's a' filled up with good deal the night in his old room, with its shelving boards and put behind his back like a hidie- roof, took out and elaborated his Tract for hole. There's something awfu' instructive the Times. It was discontent as great as that in that; for I wouldna say that the compar- of his mother's which breathed out of it; ison was ony way in the curate's favour," but then hers was the discontent of a life said the philosopher, with a gleam of sup- which had nothing new to do or to look for, pressed pride and tenderness, "if you were and which had found out by experience how to turn your een to the pulpit and take your little progress can be made in a lifetime, choice of the men." and how difficult it is to change evil into good. Colin's discontent, on the contrary, was that exhilarating sentiment which stimulates youth, and opens up an endless field of combat and conquest. At his end of the road it looked only natural that the obstacles should move of themselves out of the way, and that which was just and best should have the inevitable victory. When he had done, he thought with a tenderness which brought tears to his eyes, yet at the same moment a smile to his lips, of the woman's "You'll live to see all I am good for, moth-impatience that would hasten the wheels of er," said Colin; "and it appears to me you are all a set of heretics and schismatics. Lauderdale is past talking to, but I expected something better of you."

Mrs. Campbell lifted her eyes to her son's face and regarded him solemnly as Lauderdale spoke; but she could not escape the influence of the recollection that even Colin had been objected to. "Nae doubt the like of him in a kirk should make a difference," she said with candour, yet melancholy, "but I dinna see what's to be the end of it for my part-a change for good is aye awfu' slow to work, and I'll no live to see the new days."

"Weel, we'll a' see," said big Colin, who in his heart could not defend an order of ecclesiastical economy which permitted his son to be assaulted by the parish of Lafton, or any other parish, "if it's the will of God. We're none of us so awfu' auld; but the world's aye near its ending to a woman that sees her son slighted; there's nae penitence can make up for that no that he's suffered much that can see," the farmer said with a laugh. “That's enough of the Kirk for one night."

fate, and call upon God to take matters, as she said, in his own hand. That did not, as yet, seem a step necessary to Colin. He thought there was still time to work by the natural means, and that things were not arrived at such a pass that it was needful to appeal to miracle. It could only be when human means had failed that such a resource could be necessary; and the human means had certainly not failed entirely so long as he stood there in the bloom of his young strength, with his weapons in his hand.

He preached in his native church on the following Sunday, as was to be expected; and from up the Loch and down the Loch all the world came to hear young Colin of Ra"Eh, Colin, dinna be so worldly," said more. And Colin the farmer, the elder, sat his wife; "I think whiles it would be an glorious at the end of his pew, and in the awfu' blessing if the world was to end as pride of his heart listened, and noted, and some folk think; and a' thing cleared up, made inexorable criticisms, and commented and them joined again that had been parted, on his son's novel ideas with a severe irony and the bonnie earth safe through the fire-which it was difficult to understand in its true if it's to be by fire," she added with a questioning glance towards her son; "I canna think but it's ower good to be true. When I mind upon a' we've to go through in this life, and a' that is so hard to mend; eh, if He would but take it in His ain hand!" said the Mistress with tears in her eyes. No one was so hard-hearted as to preach to her at that moment, or to enlarge upon the fact that everything was in His hand, as indeed she knew as well as her companions; but it happens sometimes that the prayers and the wishes which are out of reason, are those

sense. The Duke himself came to hear Colin's sermon, which was a wonderful honour for the young man, and all the parish critizised him with a zest which it was exhilarating to hear. "I mind when he couldna say his Questions," said Evan of Barnton; "I wouldna like to come under ony engagement that he kens them noo. He was aye a callant awfu' fond of his ain opinion, and for my part I'm no for Presbyteries, passing ower objections so easy. Either he's of Jowett's school or he's no; but I never saw that there was ony right decision come to. There