f)0 A .Scottish Idyl. 



played her old hecidack upon us several times too, but 1 can't by 

 any means prevail upon her to take her bed. We are very few 

 in number now. Mrs Hume, Betty Stuart and Sweetest of 

 Winnies are all gone. Winnie beg-'d to be remember'd to you 

 in the kindest manner. We had a letter from my sister Lawrie 

 last week who beg'd us when we writ to Miss Johnston to make 

 her compliments to her and tell her she hop'd she would not look 

 upon her as a Moffat acquaintance. Farewell my Dr. 



Moffat, Oct. 6. 1746. J. ERSKINE. 



Grissell — my giandmothei's sister, of a peevish ridiculous temper — 

 " sweetest of Winnies," Miss Winifred Hairstanes, whose sister married 

 my greatgrandfather, and was mother of the late Ladies Sutherland and 

 Glenorchy. — C.K.S. 



The first reflection which naturally occurs to one's mind on 

 reading this humorous chronicle of high jinks and promiscuous 

 flirtation, is that the gallant officers of Blankeney's regiment mu.st 

 have had reason to congratulate themselves upon their lot, as 

 compared with that of their comrades in active service in the 

 Highlands, hunting down unhappy Jacobite fugitives, and eradi- 

 cating nests of caterans in gloomy glens and inaccessible straths, 

 as remote and savage as the Carpathians or the Khyber are now. 

 But it seems as if the young ladies themselves, representatives 

 for the most part of the best Scottish families, were at least 

 equally well pleased with their military partners, and the narrative 

 of their proceedings helps us to appreciate the force of the remark 

 recorded by Sir Walter Scott in his Irish journal, that probably 

 few occupations of territory by an invading army have been totally 

 devoid of the alleviations due to the interference of Cupid and 

 Hymen. It is not quite easy to understand why the " bold 

 baron " should have prefaced his impromptu entertainment, " rug'd 

 with the fingers " of his fair guests, by the rude assault upon his 

 own sister, poor " blind Harry ; '' but the result appears to have 

 been highly satisfactory in obliterating the recollection of the 

 previous passages of high defiance between the rival claimants 

 for the hand of the fair Maguire. One would be glad to ascertain 

 the exact nationality of the gallant brothers who shared the not 

 veiy euphonious name of Makad, and to speculate upon the after 

 career of Cornet Smith, who, though his rank, in a military point of 

 view, scarcely entitled him to the prominence which lie claims, 



