were with him, and his sisters, Kate and Effie, looking out from the
door all begreeten; but his mother was in the house, praying to the
Lord to protect her orphan, as she afterwards told me. All the
weans of the clachan were gathered at the kirkyard yett to see him
pass, and they gave him three great shouts as he was going by; and
everybody was at their doors, and said something encouraging to him;
but there was a great laugh when auld Mizy Spaewell came hirpling
with her bauchle in her hand, and flung it after him for good-luck.
Mizy had a wonderful faith in freats, and was just an oracle of
sagacity at expounding dreams, and bodes of every sort and
description--besides, she was reckoned one of the best howdies in
her day; but by this time she was grown frail and feckless, and she
died the same year on Hallowe'en, which made everybody wonder that
it should have so fallen out for her to die on Hallowe'en.

Shortly after the departure of Charlie Malcolm, the Lady of
Breadland, with her three daughters, removed to Edinburgh, where the
young laird, that had been my pupil, was learning to be an advocate,
and the Breadland-house was set to Major Gilchrist, a nabob from
India; but he was a narrow ailing man, and his maiden-sister, Miss
Girzie, was the scrimpetest creature that could be; so that, in
their hands, all the pretty policy of the Breadlands, that had cost
a power of money to the old laird that was my patron, fell into
decay and disorder; and the bonny yew-trees that were cut into the
shape of peacocks, soon grew out of all shape, and are now doleful
monuments of the major's tack, and that of Lady Skimmilk, as Miss
Girzie Gilchrist, his sister, was nick-named by every ane that kent
her.

But it was not so much on account of the neglect of the Breadland,