England! If you want proof of this, consult
the returns of the last census. Then, as to
going back. There are no people on the face of
the earth so attached to their native country, or
so anxious to end their days among their own
kith and kin, as the Scotch. Every day of the
year Scotchmen are coming back from foreign
climes to enjoy the fruits of their enterprise
amid the scenes of their youth. You meet with
instances of this in every town and village, on
every hill-side, on the borders of every loved
river and lake. A handsome villa stands
yonder among the fir-trees. Who owns it? "Oh,
that belongs to Sandy Macpherson, who went
to India, or America, or Australia, or where
not, and made a fortune. He came back the
other year and bought the land there and built
that house, and made all his relations ladies and
gentlemen as far as siller could make them."
True, a Scotchman is not apt to go back until
he has made his money. He is too proud for
that. He went away a poor laddie to seek his
fortune, and he does not like to return unless
he has fulfilled his ambition. I lately visited
the spot where General Brown was gathered to
his humble Scottish fathers. All round about
was a handsome suburb of villas and mansions
by Scotchmen who had " gone back."
I met one who had been away in Mexico for
nigh forty years, and the native Doric was as
strong on his tongue as on that of any laddie
who had never left the spot. His talk was all
of the old days, and the friends and companions
of his youth. In yon old house he had spent
many a happy night; in yonder stream he had
fished for trout;—how often had he fished there
in his dreams far away in Mexico, sleeping at
the bottom of a mine!—he remembered the
number on the pew door opposite his old seat
in church. He had not seen it for forty years;
but it was 32, and the tail of the 2 turned up
like a rabbit's. Tes, there it was. It had been
renewed, possibly, but the quaint character of
the figures was still preserved. He remembered
everything; the inscriptions on the tombstones,
and the ways and sayings of those who lay still
and dumb under them. The forty years of his
striving Mexican life and its triumphs had
almost faded from his memory, and the life of
his boyhood was joined on to that of his old
age, and his Scotch habits, feelings, and
sympathies were come back to him in all their
original simplicity. No, my Saxon friend, your
joke is neither true nor well found. A Scotchman
loves to go back, and the dearest ambition
of his heart is never fulfilled until circumstances
permit him to return to the land of his birth
with honour to himself and advantage to his
kith and kin. Why he is so ready to leave it in
the first instance should be obvious to every
one who has travelled for days and days in the
Highlands and seen nothing but bare rocks and
barren hill-sides. Not even a Scotchman can
live upon moss and heather; and would you
have him lie down and die among the rocks
while there are fresh fields and pastures new
inviting him to the sunny south? Scotland is
but a birthplace, and the inheritance of her
children is necessity.

With this preface, I proceed to relate how I,
a Scotchman, recently went back. It was so
delightful an expedition to me that I am tempted
to think some account of it may not be
uninteresting to others. I cannot hope that any
Englishman will fully credit what I say, when I
declare that my feeling, on quitting my adopted
home in the sunny south, and setting out for my
native hills in the cold north, was one of delirious
joy. Well, let me humour any incredulity of
this kind by confessing that my feeling on
quitting my native hills to come south, was exactly
of the same nature. It was not that I was
rejoiced to leave Scotland, but that I was eager
to see England. So, it was not that I was rejoiced
to leave England, but that I was eager to
revisit Scotland.

How exhilarating the air was that morning!
What deep draughts I took of it, aud how
intoxicated I was! As I rolled away from my
door in a cab, to take ship at Wapping, I cast
Care from my shoulders, as a frisky young colt
throws a cumbersome rider. There lay the black
monster sprawling in the London mud, while I,
with a lightened heart, held my face towards the
north, and sang " Auld lang syne, my dear," at
the top of my voice. I declare, upon my
honour, that I did not care a straw what might
become of the household goods that I had
gathered round my hearth in the land of my
adoption. Let the house burn, let the bank break,
let others scramble to my perch on Parnassus,
and fling me down to the very bottom of the
hill. What cared I? I was going to Scotland,
bonny Scotland, land of the mountain and the
flood, my own, my native land! The bootmaker
in the Strand, of whom I bought a pair of shooting-boots,
with brown tops, which subsequently
rendered me illustrious, must have thought me
demented. The cabman, I have good reason to
believe, thought I was intoxicated, and he was
right. But it was not with liquor; it was with
patriotism. And is it not a noble thing to be
intoxicated with patriotism? Get intoxicated
with drink, and the magistrate will fine you five
shillings; get intoxicated with patriotism, and
the king will cut your head off. I was more
fit for the notice of the Privy Council than
of Sir Thomas Henry, of Bow-street. I was
actually humming "Wha wadna' fecht for
Charlie?"

In the midst of this patriotic outburst I
was suddenly troubled for the safety of my
luggage on the roof. Charlie was dead, but my
portmanteau had still an existence, and contained
a change of linen. My luggage was all right.
No sneaking London thief had scrambled up
behind and abstracted it. I ascertained this in
a moment without moving from my seat. I will
tell you how. It may be useful to you some
day. Keep your eye on the shop-windows, and
you will see cab, luggage, and all reflected
therein. I am not going to boast that I was so
clever as to find this out for myself; somebody
told me.