saugh-wand '—and 'twould hae been the same, had it been a bar o' airn. Only think o' the Tick Dollaroose in a man's face continuing to a' eternity.

North. Or even for a few million ages

Shepherd. Angeena Pectoris is even waur, if waur may be, than the Tick Dollaroose. Some say it's an ossified condition o' the coronary arteries o' the heart; but that's no necessarily true-for there's nae ossification o' these arterial branches o' my heart. But oh! sirs, the fit's deadly, and maist like till death. A' at ance, especially if you be walkin up-hill, it comes on you like the shadow o' a thunder-cloud ower smilin natur, silencin a' the singin birds, as if it threatened earthquake,—and you canna doubt that your last hour is come, and that your sowl is about to be demanded of you by its Maker. However aften you may have it, you aye feel and believe that it is, this time-death. It is a sort o' swoon, without loss o' sense- -a dwawm, in which there still is consciousness—a stoppage o' a' the animal functions, even o' breathin itsel; which, if I'm no mista'en, is the meanin o' a syncope-and a' the while something is rug-ruggin' at the heart itsel, something cauld and ponderous, amaist like the forefinger and thoom o' a heavy haun-the haun o' an evil speerit; and then you expeck that your heart is to rin doun, just like a clock, wi' a dull cloggy noise, or rumble like that o' disarranged machinery, and then to beat, to tick nae mair! The collapse is dreadfu'. Ay, Mr North, collapse is the word.

North. Consult Uwins on Indigestion, James-the best medical work I have read for years, of a popular, yet scientific character.

Shepherd. Noo for the Jaundice. The Angeena Pectoris, the Tic Dollaroose, are intermittent-" like angel visits, few and far between"-but the jaundice lasts for weeks, when it is gatherin or brewin in the system-for weeks at its yellowest heicht, and for weeks as the disease is ebbin in the blooda disease, if I'm no sair mista'en, o' the liver.

North. An obstructed condition of the duodenum, JamesShepherd. The mental depression o' the sowl in the jaundice is most truly dreadfu'. It would hae sunk Samson on the morning o' the day that he bore aff on his back the gates o' Gaza.

1 Saugh-wand-willow-wand.

2 Rug-ruggin-tear-tearing.

JAUNDICE.

Tickler. Tell us all about it, James.

71

You

Shepherd. You begin to hate and be sick o' things that used to be maist delightfu'-sic as the sky, and streams, and hills, and the ee and voice, and haun and breast o' woman. You dauner about the doors, dour and dowie, and are seen sittin in nyeuks and corners, whare there's little licht, no mindin the cobwabs, or the spiders themselves drappin doun amang your unkempt hair. You hae nae appeteet; and if by ony chance you think you could tak a mouthfu' o' a particular dish, you splutter't out again, as if it were bitter ashes. canna say that you are unco ill either, but just a wee sickishtongue furry as if you had been licking a muff or a mawkin— and you observe, frae folk stannin weel back when you happen to speak to them—which is no aften-that your breath's bad, though a week before it was as caller as clover. You snore mair than you sleep-and dream wi' your een open-ugly, confused, mean, stupid, unimaginative dreams, like those of a drunk dunce imitatin a Noctes-and that's aboot the warst thing o' a' the complaint, that you're ashamed o' yoursel, and begin to fear that you're no the man you ance thocht yoursel, when in health shootin groose on the hills, or listerin sawmon. North. The jaundice that, James, of a man of genius-of the author of the Queen's Wake.

Shepherd. Wad ye believe it, sir, that I was ashamed of "Kilmeny?" A' the poems I ever writ seemed trash-rubbish -fuilzie; and as for my prose-even my verra articles in Maga -"Shepherd's Calendar" and a'-waxed havers-like something in the Metropolitan Quarterly Magazine, the stupidest o' a' created periodicals, and now deader than a' the nails in Nebuchadnezzar's coffin.

North. The disease must have been at its climax then, my dear James.

Shepherd. Na, na, na; it was far frae the cleemax. I tuk to the bed, and never luckit out frae the coortains for a fortnight -gettin glummier and glummier in sense and sowl, heart, mind, body, and estate-eating little or naething, and—wad ye believe it?-sick, and like to scunner at the very name o' whusky.

North. Thank God, I knew nothing of all this, James. I could not have borne the thought, much less the sight, of such total prostration, or rather perversion of your understanding.

72

THEIR COMBINED ATTACK.

Shepherd. Wearied and worn out wi' lyin in the bed, I got up wi' some sma' assistance frae wee Jamie, God bless him! and telt them to open the shutters. What a sicht! A' faces as yellow's yellow lilies, like the parchment o' an auld drumhead! Ghastly were they, ane and a', whan they leuch;1 yet seemed insensible o' their corp-like hue-I mean, a corp that has died o' some unnatural disease, and been keepit ower lang aboon grun' in close weather, the carpenter having gotten drunk, and botched the coffin. I ca'd for the glass-and my ain face was the warst o' the haill set. Whites o' een! They were the colour o' dandelions, or yellow-yoldrins. I was feared to wash my face, lest the water grew ochre. That the Jaundice was in the house was plain; but whether it was me only that had it, or a' the rest likewise, was mair than I could tell. That the yellow I saw wasna in them, but in me, was hard to believe, when I luckit on them; yet I thocht on green specks, and the stained wundows in Windermere Station, and reasoned wi' mysel that the discoloration must be in my lens, or pupil, or optic nerve, or apple, or ba' o' the ee; and that I, James Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, was The Jaundice.

Tickler. Your portrait, coloured from nature, James, would have been inestimable in after ages, and given rise to much argument among the learned about your origin-the country of your birth. You must have looked cousin-german to the Green Man and Still.

Shepherd. I stoitered to the door, and, just as I feared, the Yarrow was as yellow as a rotten egg-a' the holms the colour o' a Cockney's play-going gloves-the skies like the dirty ochre wa's o' a change-house-the cluds like buckskin breeks -and the sun, the michty sun himsel, wha lends the rainbow its hues, and is never the poorer, looked at me wi' a disconsolate aspeck, as much as to say, "James, James, is it thou or I that has the Jaundice?"

Tickler. Better than the best bits of Abernethy3 in the Lancet, North.

Shepherd. Just as I was gaun to answer the Sun, the Tick Dollaroose attacked baith o' my cheeks-a' my face, lips, chin,

1 Leuch-laughed.

2 Yellow-yoldrin-yellow-hammer.

3 This eminent practitioner, celebrated no less for his eccentricity of manner than for his medical skill, was born in 1764, and died in 1831. He was the author of Surgical Observations, Physiological Essays, &c.

nose, brow, lugs, and crown and back o' my head,—the Angeena Pectoris brought on the Heart-Collapse-and there the three, the Tick, the Angeena, and the Jaundice, a' fell on me at ance, like three English, Scotch, and Eerish regiments stormin a fort, and slaughterin their way wi' the beggonet on to the citadel.

North. That you are alive at this blessed hour, my dearest James, almost exceeds belief, and I begin to suspect that you are not flesh and blood,—a mere Appearance.

Shepherd. Na, faith, a'm a reality; an Appearance is a puir haun at a jug. Yet, sir, the recovery was weel worth a' I paid for it in sufferins. The first time I went out to the knowe yonner, aboon the garden, and gazed and glowered, and better gazed and glowered, on the heavens, the earth, and the air, the three bein' blent thegither to mak up that mysterious thing -a Day o' Glory-I thocht that my youth, like that o' the sun-staring eagle, had been renewed, and that I was ance mair in the verra middle o' the untamed licht and music o' this life, whan a' is fancy and imagination, and friendship and love, and howp,-oh, howp, sir, howp, worth a' the ither blisses ever sent frae Heaven, like a shower o' sunbeams, for it canna be darkenit, far less put out by the mirkest midnight o' meesery, but keeps shinin on like a star, or rather like the moon hersel-a spiritual moon, sir, that "is never hid in vacant interlunar cave."

Tickler. Mixed metaphors these, James.

Shepherd. Nane the waur o' that, Timothy - I felt about ane-and-twunty-and oh, what an angelical being was a lassie then comin wadin through the ford! At every step she took, after launin wi' her white feet, havin letten doun fa' her cloudlike claes wi' a blush, as she keepit lookin roun' and roun' for a whyleock, to see gin ony ee had been on her, as her limbs came silveryin through the water

North. The Ladies, James, in a bumper.

Shepherd. The leddies.-A track o' flowers keepit lenthenin alang the greensward as she walked awa, at last, quite out o' sicht.

Tickler. And this you call recovering from the Tic-Douloureux, the Angina Pectoris, and the Jaundice, James?

Shepherd. Few roses are there about Mount Benger, and nae honeysuckle; and, at the time I speak o', the field-pease

74

O THE DAYS WHEN WE WERE YOUNG!

and beans werena in bloom; yet a' the hollow o' the air was filled wi' sweetness, mair like than onything else to the smell o' thyme, and sic a scent wad hae tauld a blin' man that he was breathin in paradise. The shapes o' the few trees that grew on that part o' the Yarrow, became mair gracefu', and the trees themsels seemed as if leevin creturs when the breeze cam near them, and shook their tresses in the moonshine, like lassies lettin out their hair to dry, after they hae been bathin in some shady linn, and lauchin about their sweethearts.

Tickler. James, you cannot get rid of your besetting imagery.

Shepherd. Slawly, slawly did I fa' back into mysel-into a man o' fifty and some few years mair, into something duller, deader, mair obscure-yet no unhappy either, or inclined to utter ony complaints, but still owerburdened by a dimness, maist a darkness o' soul- and weel weel aware, that though you were to crown my brow wi' the garlands o' glory, and to set a diadem on the crown o' my head, and for Prime Minister to give me Power, and Health for my Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Pleasure for Home Secretary, never, never, never could James Hogg be what he ance was; nor, as lang as he leeves, enjoy as much happiness, put it a'thegither, and multiply it by decimals, as used lang, lang ago aften to be crooded into ae single hour, till I thocht my verra heart wad hae burst wi' bliss, and that the stars o' heaven, pure as they are, burned dim with envy of us twa beneath the milk-white thorn, the trysting-thorn for the Flowers o' the Forest, for countless generations.

(Enter MR AMBROSE, with Copper-kettle No. I.) North. Who rung?

Ambrose. I have taken note of the time of the last four jugs, sir, and have found that each jug gains ten minutes on its predecessor-so ventured

Shepherd. Oh, Mr Ambrose, but you wad be a gran' observer o' the motions o' the heavenly bodies, in an Astronomical Observatory!-The jug's this moment dead. There-in wi' a' the sugar, and a' the whusky,-fill up, Awmrose, fill up. That stroop's' a gran' pourer, and you're a prime experimenter in hydrostatics. [Exit MR AMBROSE, susurrans.

1 Stroop-spout.