MR W 'S MARRIAGE. 411 



quiet of a Southland Free-Church Manse, accompanied 

 by a muffled lady as broad as she was long, and con- 

 siderably advanced in life. To the broad lady Mr 

 - was, it would seem, to be married; and the 

 broad lady had a friend with her, a grand person, 

 captain, major, or colonel, with huge whiskers and an 

 air. The friend had never seen a Presbyterian marriage ; 

 and when the preliminary prayer was over he thought 

 all was done, and began to speak in a joking vein very 

 loud. " Marriage is honourable," said the minister, be- 

 ginning the proper business of the transaction. " Yes 

 it is, my boy," said the military man, clapping him on 

 the shoulder. The young people looked unutterable 

 things, and the minister was so much put out, that he 

 was in danger of sticking the whole concern. 



' I found a sad accident which had just happened at 

 Wick the general subject of conversation on my arrival. 

 The Sheriff-substitute, a young Edinburgh gentleman, 

 has been drowned in boating on a long narrow lake, the 

 Loch of Watton, which skirts for three miles the Thurso 

 road. He was courting, it is said, a daughter of Sir 

 John Sinclair, and was sailing up the loch in a small 

 skiff to meet her, accompanied by a single boatman, 

 when a sudden squall caught the sail, and the skiff 

 first capsized and then went down, and boatman and 

 sheriff were both drowned. I saw men engaged as 1 

 passed the loch to-day in dragging for the body of the 

 boatman, that of the sheriff was found the day 

 before. They perished in a quiet inland scene hardly 

 a gunshot distant from a grassy shore rising into green 

 fields/ 



Our two next letters, the first from Sir Roderick 

 Murchison, the second from Lord Ellesmere, referring, 



