58
TALES OF MY LANDLORD.
Chapter IV.
For close designs and crooked counsels fit,
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit,
Restless, unfix'd in principle and place.
In pow'r unpleased, impatient in disgrace.
Absalom and Achitophel..
The village of Inverara, now a neat county town, then partook of the rudeness of the seventeenth century, in the miserable appearance of the houses, and the irregularity of the unpaved street. But a stronger and more terrible characteristic of the period appeared in the market-place, which was a space of irregular width, half way betwixt the harbour, or pier, and the frowning castle gate, which terminated with its gloomy arch-way, portcullis, and flankers, the upper end of the vista. Midway this space was erected a rude gibbet, on
