those neighbouring barons with whom he chanced to be at feud.
Latterly their services were of a more pacific nature. The women
spun mittens for the lady, and knitted boot-hose for the Laird,
which were annually presented at Christmas with great form. The
aged sibyls blessed the bridal bed of the Laird when he married,
and the cradle of the heir when born. The men repaired her
ladyship's cracked china, and assisted the Laird in his sporting
parties, wormed his dogs, and cut the ears of his terrier puppies.
The children gathered nuts in the woods, and cranberries in the
moss, and mushrooms on the pastures, for tribute to the Place.
These acts of voluntary service, and acknowledgments of
dependence, were rewarded by protection on some occasions,
connivance on others, and broken victuals, ale, and brandy when
circumstances called for a display of generosity; and this mutual
intercourse of good offices, which had been carried on for at
least two centuries, rendered the inhabitants of Derncleugh a kind
of privileged retainers upon the estate of Ellangowan. 'The
knaves' were the Laird's 'exceeding good friends'; and he would
have deemed himself very ill used if his countenance could not now
and then have borne them out against the law of the country and
the local magistrate. But this friendly union was soon to be
dissolved.

The community of Derncleugh, who cared for no rogues but their
own, were wholly without alarm at the severity of the Justice's
proceedings towards other itinerants. They had no doubt that he
determined to suffer no mendicants or strollers in the country but
what resided on his own property, and practised their trade by his
immediate permission, implied or expressed. Nor was Mr. Bertram in
a hurry to exert his newly-acquired authority at the expense of