fashed wi' the like o' him."

"That was not civil or right, Malcolm--an old man, too. Where is
he?"

"Just by the door--eh--and he's coming ben--the ill-mannered
loon!" cried Malcolm, angrily, as he interrupted the intruder--a
tall, gaunt figure wrapped in a shepherd's plaid, with the bonnet set
upon the grizzled head in that sturdy independence--nay, more than
independence--rudeness, rough and thorny as his own thistle, which is
the characteristic of the Scotch peasant externally, till you get below
the surface to the warm, kindly heart.

"I'm no ill-mannered, and I'll just gang through the hale house till I
find my lord," said the old man, shaking off Malcolm with a strength
that his seventy odd years seemed scarcely to have diminished. "I'm
wushing ane harm to ony o' ye, but I maun get speech o' my lord. He's
no bairn; he'll be ane-and-twenty the thirtieth o' June: I mind the day
weel, for the wife was brought to bed o' her last wean the same day as
the countess, and our Dougal's a braw callant the noo, ye ken. Gin the
earl has ony wits ava, whilk folk thocht was aye doubtful', he'll hae
gotten them by this time. I maun speak wi' himself', unless, as they
said, he's no a' there."

"Haud your tongue, ye fule!" cried Malcolm, stopping him with a fierce
whisper. "Yon's my lord!"

The old shepherd started back, for at this moment a sudden blaze-up of
the fire showed him, sitting in the corner, the diminutive figure,
attired carefully after the then fashion of gentlemen's dress, every