Essays in the Art of Writing

The Master o

8

awakens more attention than he had expected; in his own city, the relation is reversed, and he stands amazed to be so little recollected. Elsewhere he is refreshed to see attractive faces, to remark possible friends; there he scouts the long streets, with a pang at heart, for the f

ords that sounded of old days, a laugh provoked and shared, a glimpse in passing of the snowy cloth and bright decanters and the Piranesis on the dining-room wall, brought him to his bed-room with a somewhat lightened cheer, and when he and Mr. Thomson sat

arrival; because, my dear fellow, it is my own youth that comes back along with you;

g,’ said the editor. ‘But what i

put it in my power to honour your arrival with som

ry?’ I r

ile it is truly mysterious, no eye having looked on it for near a hundred years; it is highly genteel, for it treats o

e or a more promising annunciation,’

decessor’s, old Pete

ation, and he could not feel the pang without betraying it. He was to me

ded to a prodigious accumulation of old law-papers and old tin boxes, some of them of Peter’s hoarding, some of his fath

in the ‘45; one had some strange passages with the devil — you will find a note of it in Law’s Memorials

years ago,’ said Mr

ow that? I mea

r, the Master of Ballantrae (attainted in the troubles),’ said M

the neighbourhood of St. Bride’s; he has often told me of the avenue closed up and grown over with grass, the great gates never opened, the last lord and his old maid sister who lived in the back parts o

put me on the search for the packet we are going to open this evening. Some papers could not be found; and he wrote to Jack M’Brair suggesting they might be among those sealed up by a Mr. Mackellar. M’Brair answered, that the papers in question were all in Mackellar’s own hand, all (as the writer understo

was a packet, fastened with many seals and enclose

inted in the troubles: entrusted into the hands of John M’Brair in the Lawnmarket of Edinburgh, W.S.; this 20th day of September Anno Domini 1789; by

M MACK

Land Steward on the e

our had struck when we laid down the last of the follo

r hand: all you have to do is to work up the scene

hree things that I would rather die than set m

bald,’ object

‘and I am sure there is nothing so interesting. I would have

aid Mr. Thomson

The End<