ere's nae
doot they're gey and chief got sin! he cam' back, and she foun' oot wha
created the collieshangie."

"Ay, man, and she kens that?" said the Chamberlain with unnatural calm.

"'Deed does she, brawly! though hoo she kens is mair nor I can guess.
Monsher thrieps it wasnae him, and I'll gie my oath it wasnae me."

"Women are kittle cattle, Mungo. There's whiles I think it a peety the
old law against witchcraft was not still to the fore. And so she kent,
did she? and nobody tell't her. Well, well!" He laughed softly, with
great bitterness.

Mungo turned the lantern about in his hand and had nothing to say.

"What's this I'm hearing about the Baron--the Baron and her--and her,
leaving?" said the Chamberlain.

"It's the glide's truth that," said the little man; "and for the oots
and ins o't ye'll hae to ask Petullo doon-by, for he's at the root o't.
Doom's done wi'; it's his decreet, and I'm no' a day ower soon wi' the
promise o' the Red Sodger--for the which I'm muckle obleeged to you,
Factor. Doom's done; they're gaun awa' in a week or twa, and me and
Annapla's to be left ahint to steek the yetts."

"So they tell me, Mungo; so they tell me," said the Chamberlain, neither
up nor down at this corroboration. "In a week or twa! ay! ay! It'll be
the bowrer nae langer then," he went on, unconsciously mimicking the
Lowland Scots of the domestic. "Do ye ken the auld song?--

'O Bessie Bell and Mary Gray,
They were twa bonnie lassies!
They bigged a bower on yon burn-brae,
And theekit it o'er wi' rashes.'"

He lilted the air with indiscreet indifference to being heard within;
and "Wheesh! man, wheesh!" expostulated Mungo. "If himsel' was to ken o'
me colloguing wi' ye at the door at this 'oor o' the nicht, there wad be
Auld Hornie to pay."

"Oh! there's like to be that the ways it is," said the Chamberlain,
never lifting his shoulder from the door-post, beating his leg with the
flageolet, and in all with the appearance of a casual gossip reluctant
to be going. "Indeed, and by my troth! there's like to be that!" he
repeated. "Do ye think, by the look of me, Mungo, I'm in a pleasant
condition of mind?"

"Faith and ye look gey gash, sir," said Mungo; "there's no denyin' that
of it."

The Chamberlain gave a little crackling laugh, and held the flageolet
like a dirk, flat along the inside of his arm and his fingers straining
round the thick of it.

"Gash!" said he. "That's the way I feel. By