While the coachman again bridled his lean cattle, which
had been indulged with a bite of musty hay, the Duke cautioned Jeanie not
to be too communicative to her landlady concerning what had passed.
"There is," he said, "no use of speaking of matters till they are
actually settled; and you may refer the good lady to Archibald, if she
presses you hard with questions. She is his old acquaintance, and he
knows how to manage with her."
He then took a cordial farewell of Jeanie, and told her to be ready in
the ensuing week to return to Scotland--saw her safely established in her
hackney-coach, and rolled of in his own carriage, humming a stanza of the
ballad which he is said to have composed:--
"At the sight of Dumbarton once again,
I'll cock up my bonnet and march amain,
With my claymore hanging down to my heel,
To whang at the bannocks of barley meal."
Perhaps one ought to be actually a Scotsman to conceive how ardently,
under all distinctions of rank and situation, they feel their mutual
connection with each other as natives of the same country. There are, I
believe, more associations common to the inhabitants of a rude and wild,
than of a well-cultivated and fertile country; their ancestors have more
seldom changed their place of residence; their mutual recollection of
remarkable objects is more accurate; the high and the low are more
interested in each other's welfare; the feelings of kindred and
relationship are more widely extended, and in a word, the bonds of
patriotic affection, always honourable even when a little too exclusively
strained, have more influence on men's feelings and actions.
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