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"Thir kittle times will drive the wisest o' us daft," said Niel Blane, the prudent host of the Howff; "but I'se aye keep a calm sough. Jenny, what meal is in the girnel?" "Four bows o' aitmeal, twa bows o' bear, and twa bows o' pease," was Jenny's reply.
After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenallan agreed to go with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole history of John of the Girnel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never known to spare any one who crossed his threshold.
"Whan I see the peppers, I'll ken what to du." With a nod of the head as self important as decisive, he turned his back. "At all events," said Malcolm, "you will say nothing about it before you hear from one of us again?" "I mak nae promises," answered Girnel, from behind his own back. A howl arose from the rest. "Ye promised a'ready," said Blue Peter. "Na, I didna that. I said never a word."
"Amen, amen, quo' the Earl Marshall," answered Oldbuck, as he exchanged his slippers for a pair of stout walking shoes, with cutikins, as he called them, of black cloth. He only interrupted the walk by a slight deviation to the tomb of John o' the Girnel, remembered as the last bailiff of the abbey who had resided at Monkbarns.
I beg yer pardon, my lord, here i' the face o' my freen's. It was ill-temper an' pride i' me, jist the same as it's noo in Girnel there; an' ye maun forgie him, as ye forgae me, my lord, as sune 's ye can." "I'll du that, my Peter, the verra moment he wants to be forgi'en," said Malcolm. But Girnel turned with a grunt, and moved away toward the cliff. "This'll never du," said Peter.
Men have been lost in the glen in mists so thick that they could plunge their fingers out of sight in it as into a meal girnel; but this mist never came within twenty yards of me. I was surrounded by it, however, as if I was in a round tent; and out of this tent I could not walk, for it advanced with me.
"Aweel, hinny," continued Niel Blane, sighing deeply, "let Bauldy drive the pease and bear meal to the camp at Drumclog he's a whig, and was the auld gudewife's pleughman the mashlum bannocks will suit their muirland stamachs weel. "And what are we to eat oursells then, father," asked Jenny, "when we hae sent awa the haill meal in the ark and the girnel?"
But for no risk must we prevent wrong with wrong." So Girnel was allowed to depart scarcely in peace, for he was already ashamed of himself. With the understanding that they were to be ready to his call, and that they should hear from him in the course of the day, Malcolm left them, and rowed back to the Psyche.
"I have papers signed by my father, the late marquis, and sealed and witnessed by well known gentlemen of the neighbourhood." "Whaur are they?" said Girnel, holding out his hand. "I don't carry such valuable things about me," answered Malcolm. "But if you go with the rest, you shall see them afterwards." "I'll du naething i' the dark," persisted Girnel.
"Ye mauna tak it ill, my lord," said Peter, "gien the laads be ta'en aback wi' the news. It's a some suddent shift o' the win, ye see, my lord." "I wuss yer lordship weel," thereupon said one, and held out his hand. "Lang life to yer lordship," said another. Each spoke a hearty word, and shook hands with him all except Girnel, who held back, looking on, with his right hand in his trouser pocket.
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