it was the identical article worn by the man who robbed him; and he and others likewise deponed that they had found the accused on the spot where the crime was committed, with the bonnet on his head.  The case looked gloomily for the prisoner, and the opinion of the judge seemed unfavourable.  But there was a person in court who knew well both who did and who did not commit the crime.  This was the Caird of Barullion, who, thrusting himself up to the bar near the place where Bargally was standing, suddenly seized on the bonnet, put it on his head, and, looking the Laird full in the face, asked him, with a voice which attracted the attention of the court and crowded audience—­’Look at me, sir, and tell me, by the oath you have sworn—­Am not I the man who robbed you between Carsphairn and Dalmellington?’ Bargally replied, in great astonishment, ‘By Heaven! you are the very man.’  ’You see what sort of memory this gentleman has,’ said the volunteer pleader; ’he swears to the bonnet whatever features are under it.  If you yourself, my Lord, will put it on your head, he will be willing to swear that your Lordship was the party who robbed him between Carsphairn and Dalmellington.’  The tenant of Bantoberick was unanimously acquitted; and thus Willie Marshal ingeniously contrived to save an innocent man from danger, without incurring any himself, since Bargally’s evidence must have seemed to every one too fluctuating to be relied upon.

While the King of the Gipsies was thus laudably occupied, his royal consort, Flora, contrived, it is said, to steal the hood from the judge’s gown; for which offence, combined with her presumptive guilt as a gipsy, she was banished to New England, whence she never returned.

Now, I cannot grant that the idea of Meg Merrilies was, in the first concoction of the character, derived from Flora Marshal, seeing I have already said she was identified with Jean Gordon, and as I have not the Laird of Bargally’s apology for charging the same fact on two several individuals.  Yet I am quite content that Meg should be considered as a representative of her sect and class in general, Flora as well as others.

The other instances in which my Gallovidian readers have obliged me by assigning to

     Airy nothing
     A local habitation and a name,

shall also be sanctioned so far as the Author may be entitled to do so.  I think the facetious Joe Miller records a case pretty much in point; where the keeper of a museum, while showing, as he said, the very sword with which Balaam was about to kill his ass, was interrupted by one of the visitors, who reminded him that Balaam was not possessed of a sword, but only wished for one.  ’True, sir,’ replied the ready-witted cicerone; ’but this is the very sword he wished for.’  The Author, in application of this story, has only to add that, though ignorant of the coincidence between the fictions of the tale and some real circumstances, he is contented to believe he must unconsciously have thought or dreamed of the last while engaged in the composition of Guy Mannering.