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Ye preached us out o' our canny free-house and gude kale-yard, and out o' this new city o' refuge afore our hinder end was weel hafted in it; and ye hae preached Mr Harry awa to the prison; and ye hae preached twenty punds out o' the Laird's pocket that he likes as ill to quit wi'; and sae ye may haud sae for ae wee while, without preaching me up a ladder and down a tow.
"Why didn't he speak up then, and defend himself, and not be so damned obstinate?" returned Fergus. "He wouldn't open his mouth to tell his name, or where he came from even. I couldn't get him to utter a single word. As for his punishment, it was by the laird's orders that Angus Mac Pholp took the whip to him. I had nothing to do with it.
'Of the laird's gang! said I, repeating the words in surprise. 'Do you mean the person with whom I slept last night? I heard you call him the laird. Is he at the head of a gang?
He was obeyed; and the huge dog rushed into the hall, disturbing, by his unwieldy and boisterous gambols, the whole economy of reels, rocks, and distaffs, with which the maidens of the household were employed when the arrival of their lord was a signal to them to withdraw, and extracting from Lilias, who was summoned to put them again in order, the natural observation, "That the Laird's pet was as troublesome as the lady's page."
The Laird of Port Agnew was not yet ready to surrender. Spring lengthened into summer and summer into fall. Quail piped in the logged-over lands and wild ducks whistled down through the timber and rested on the muddy bosom of the Skookum, but for the first time in forty years The Laird's setters remained in their kennels and his fowling pieces in their leather cases.
They formed a quiet, grave, orderly company of men and women in homespun garments, with only a few children among them. The arrival of the laird's party made a very considerable addition to the congregation, and, as the hour for meeting had already passed by a few minutes, they made a general move towards the church.
Alan Fairford alone was unmoved among all this mirth; which was the less wonderful, that, besides the important subject which occupied his thoughts, most of the laird's good things consisted in sly allusions to little parochial or family incidents, with which the Edinburgh visitor was totally unacquainted: so that the laughter of the party sounded in his ear like the idle crackling of thorns under the pot, with this difference, that they did not accompany or second any such useful operation as the boiling thereof.
The minister perceived the workings of her pious mind, and thenceforward addressed her by the courteous title of Lady Dalcastle, which sounded somewhat better, as not coupling her name with one of the wicked: and there is too great reason to believe that, for all the solemn vows she had come under, and these were of no ordinary binding, particularly on the laird's part, she at that time despised, if not abhorred him, in her heart.
Carrington's monocle was more continually fixed on the other than usual, but if he were looking for peculiarities in the laird's manner or any admissions made either by tongue or eye, he was disappointed. There was no doubt, however, of his keenness to discuss the subject. Carrington gave him an entertaining account of his efforts to assist Mr.
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