in his own person, the last-quoted observation, but he would have
known better than to go back, even if himself, and not his father,
had been the first comer of his line from the north. He had
married an English Christian, and, having none of the Scotch
accent, was ungracious enough to be ashamed of his blood. He was
desirous to obliterate alike the Hebrew and Caledonian vestiges in
his name, and signed himself E. M. Crotchet, which by degrees
induced the majority of his neighbours to think that his name was
Edward Matthew. The more effectually to sink the Mac, he
christened his villa "Crotchet Castle," and determined to hand down
to posterity the honours of Crotchet of Crotchet. He found it
essential to his dignity to furnish himself with a coat of arms,
which, after the proper ceremonies (payment being the principal),
he obtained, videlicet: Crest, a crotchet rampant, in A sharp;
Arms, three empty bladders, turgescent, to show how opinions are
formed; three bags of gold, pendent, to show why they are
maintained; three naked swords, tranchant, to show how they are
administered; and three barbers' blocks, gaspant, to show how they
are swallowed.

Mr. Crotchet was left a widower, with two children; and, after the
death of his wife, so strong was his sense of the blessed comfort
she had been to him, that he determined never to give any other
woman an opportunity of obliterating the happy recollection.

He was not without a plausible pretence for styling his villa a
castle, for, in its immediate vicinity, and within his own enclosed
domain, were the manifest traces, on the brow of the hill, of a
Roman station, or castellum, which was still called the "Castle" by
the country people. The primitive mounds and trenches, merely