fornicators, doing pennance on the cutty stool,* from the hilly part of the parish, very far Communibus

This is a small gallery, fit to contain about half a dozen of per sons, painted black, and on which offenders against chastity are forced to sit, during the time of divine service, for three Sundays, making profession of their repentance, and receive a rebuke, each time, from the minister, in the face of the congregation. Gentlemen, and others of the better sort, that is, in better than ordinary circumstances, are commonly permitted now, though this was by no means the case in the stricter and purer times of the kirk, to commute an appearance on the cutty stool for a pecuniary fine, to be applied to the exigencies of the poor. A good many years back, in the parish of Saline, a very pretty village, at the western extremity of the Cleish hills, running parallel, and at the distance of only from two to three miles from the Aichils, to which they bear a near resemblance, in all respects, there flourished, among other fornicators, a gentleman of small, but independent fortune, about two hundred pounds a year, of landed estate, who had indulged himself in an illicit amour, with a low and dirty wench, the daughter of a strolling piper. The minister of Saline, at that time, was Mr. Hunter, a very worthy man, of great innocence and simplicity of manners, and remarkable for that familiar and colloquial style of preaching, which is ridiculed in a book, called Presbyterian Eloquence; and who considered it as his duty to maintain, with great strictness, the original discipline of the kirk. The girl, being with child, was summoned to the kirk session, which is held every Sunday, after divine service, by the minister and the elders, a kind of lay-brethren, like certain office-bearers, or servants, in monasteries. Being called on to give up the father of the child with which she was pregnant, she named laird Halley. The laird being also summoned to make his appearance, did not deny what he was charged with, but refused to mount the cutty stool, though he had no objections to pay a fine. Mr. Hunter insisted that he should. do penance before the congregation. Mr. Halley, dreading excommunication, which in Scotland is a very serious matter, at last agreed to stand on the stool of repentance, and be duly rebuked, on the condition, that the minister should not mention, as is usual in such cases, the name of the woman with whom he had transgressed. Mr. Hunter, who was a good-natured man, conceded that point, and said, he

Annis, exceeded that of the Lowland parts; though these last were, on the whole, upwards of six to one, in point of numbers. But, to do justice to those poor sinners of the Aichils, their anticipations usually terminated in marriage.

Every one who possessed a piece of land, however small, rent free, was called a LAIRD, and his wife, in like manner, a lady. You might have seen, every day, a lady, from the Aichils, with butter, cheese, and eggs, swung over her horse, in a pair of creels, that is panniers, and herself mounted with great dignity above the whole, going to market with her articles ; with a stuff hood, of large dimensions, turned up only with silk, on her head, and a cloak, also, of woollen stuff, or sometimes in place of this a riding coat, which was reckoned a piece of finery. In the parish of Forteviot, I knew a laird Nelson of CleughField, whose whole estate did not amount to ten pounds per annum. The old laird, being his son and heir, followed the business of a carpenter; while the dowager lady Cleugh-Field, kept a small public-house, (which was indeed the mansion, or manor

would not. Mr. Halley appears on the cutty stool: "Mr. James Halley, you appear here before God and this congregation, to confess and declare your contrition for the heinous sin of fornication, wi (but here recollecting his promise). I need na say wha wi. We a-a-ken wha wi." "This extraordinary turn gave wing to the affair over all the country, far and near. The laird had wrapped himself up in two great coats; the one buttoned before, the other behind; with the neck turned up so as to conceal his face. "Ah! cried Mr. Hunter, weel may ye be ashamit. But turn about your face; I say, Mr. Halley, turn about your face." The laird turned himself about; still he presented a back; "Oho!" says Mr. Hunter, "you're a aback, are ye? gin ye had been a a-back, ye had na been there."

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house,) for selling ale and whisky. By her husband's will, she was very reasonably to keep possession of the premises during her life.

As to the superior order of lairds in the Aichils, they lived in that easy, and most enviable state of mediocrity, between genteel and fashionable life, on the one hand, and poverty, or labour and drudgery on the other; and from that simplicity of manners, which is contented with the necessaries and comforts, and pants not after the superfluities and vanities of life, derived an affluence but seldom known to the possessors of the most ample patrimonial estates.

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FROM FALKLAND BY KINROSS TO ABERNETHEY.

FROM Falkland I went next to see Lochlevin, near Kinross, where the unfortunate Mary, queen of Scots, was for some time detained in an island in the middle of it. The isle, in which there is a castle, which in those days was deemed a fortress of great strength, may contain about seven or eight acres of ground. The walls of the castle, halfshaded by a grove of lofty trees, in which it is embosomed, and which cover nearly the whole island, form a very striking and interesting object. It does not seem to be more than about a mile from the shore. The whole circle of the castle is five hundred and eighty-five feet. Every one knows the manner in which the queen made her escape from this strong hold. The lords of the congregation, who, otherwise styled themselves, the lords for the reformation of Scotland, and at this juncture were called, the lords of the secret council, had committed the queen to the custody of William Douglas, governor of the castle, and laird of Lochlevin. George Douglas, a young gentleman, brother to the governor, had fallen in love with her; which, we may presume, in her circumstances, she did not discourage. On the 2d of May, 1568, about seven o'clock after noon, when the governor was at supper with his family, George Douglas, having got hold of the keys of the castle, hastened to her apartment, and conducted her out of prison, and ferried her

over in a boat to the main land; throwing the keys of the castle into the lake. † William Douglas, the governor of the castle of Lochlevin, had married the mother of the earl of Murray, the queen's natural brother.

Lochlevin is a spacious and beautiful piece of water, washing the roots of the western Lomond, about fifteen miles in circumference, and four in length, interspersed with islands of various appearance and extent. One of these, called St. Serf's Isle, contains forty-eight acres of good pasture. This lake is famous for a great variety of different kinds of trout, for the most part of a bright colour, and all of them highly flavoured. Some of them weigh from two to three pounds. The Loch also abounds with eels, pikes, flounders, and perches. The river Levin, which issues from the lake, is also a stream famous for the sport of trout-fishing. I presume that the king Alexander III. who lived very much in Loch

When the people of Kinross point out to strangers this state prison, and describe the mode of the queen's escape, they tell you, that young Douglas swam over to the Kinross side of the lake for a boat. This, like the story of Leander, is very pretty and romantic. There cannot, however, be a doubt, that he must have scized on one of the boats belonging to the castle. There was not time for fetching a boat from the opposite land, had it been necessary. And I mention this foolish tradition, only as an instance of that propensity to the marvellous and romantic, which has always so generally prevailed, especially in matters of war and love.

These keys, of which there were several fastened together, were accidentally dragged out of Lochlevin, not long ago, by a fisherman, and presented to the earl of Morton, to whose family, the Douglases of Lochlevin were nearly related. They were much less injured by time than could have been expected.