So saying, Meg set the lighted candle on the sideboard, and finally
vanished. The good-tempered, who formed the greater part of the
company, smiled to each other, and emptied the last drops of their
toddy first into their glasses, and thence into their mouths. The
ill-tempered, numbering but one more than MacGregor, growled and
swore a little, the weaver declaring that he would not go home. But
the rest walked out and left him, and at last, appalled by the
silence, he rose with his wig awry, and trotted--he always trotted
when he was tipsy--home to his wife.




CHAPTER VI.

MRS. FALCONER.

Meantime Robert was seated in the parlour at the little dark
mahogany table, in which the lamp, shaded towards his grandmother's
side, shone brilliantly reflected. Her face being thus hidden both
by the light and the shadow, he could not observe the keen look of
stern benevolence with which, knowing that he could not see her, she
regarded him as he ate his thick oat-cake of Betty's skilled
manufacture, well loaded with the sweetest butter, and drank the tea
which she had poured out and sugared for him with liberal hand. It
was a comfortable little room, though its inlaid mahogany chairs and
ancient sofa, covered with horsehair, had a certain look of
hardness, no doubt. A shepherdess and lamb, worked in silks whose
brilliance had now faded half-way to neutrality, hung in a black