bserved, after pausing for an
answer, which he knew that he had no human chance of receiving. "A'
gaes wrang when the Master's out-bye; but I'll take care o' your cattle
mysell."

"I think you had better," said Ravenswood, "otherwise I see little
chance of their being attended to at all."

"Whisht, my lord--whisht, for God's sake," said Caleb, in an imploring
tone, and apart to his master; "if ye dinna regard your ain credit,
think on mine; we'll hae hard eneugh wark to make a decent night o't,
wi' a' the lees I can tell."

"Well, well, never mind," said his master; "go to the stable. There is
hay and corn, I trust?"

"Ou ay, plenty of hay and corn"; this was uttered boldly and aloud, and,
in a lower tone, "there was some half fous o' aits, and some taits o'
meadow-hay, left after the burial."

"Very well," said Ravenswood, taking the lamp from his domestic's
unwilling hand, "I will show the stranger upstairs myself."

"I canna think o' that, my lord; if ye wad but have five minutes, or ten
minutes, or, at maist, a quarter of an hour's patience, and look at the
fine moonlight prospect of the Bass and North Berwick Law till I sort
the horses, I would marshal ye up, as reason is ye suld be marshalled,
your lordship and your honourable visitor. And I hae lockit up the
siller candlesticks, and the lamp is not fit----"

"It will do very well in the mean time," said Ravenswood, "and you will
have no difficulty for want of light in the stable, for, if I recollect,
half the roof is off."

"Very true, my lord," replied the trusty adherent, and with ready wit
instantly added, "and the lazy sclater loons have never come to put it
on a' this while, your lordship."

"If I were disposed to jest at the calamities of my house," said
Ravenswood, as he led the way upstairs, "poor old Caleb would furnish me
with ample means. His passion consists in representing things about our
miserable menage, not as they are, but as, in his opinion, they ought
to be; and, to say the truth, I have been often diverted with the poor
wretch's expedients to supply what he though was essential for the credit
of the family, and his still more generous apologies for the want of
those articles for which his ingenuity could discover no substitute.
But though the tower is none of the largest, I shall have some trouble
without him to find the apartment in which there is a fire."

As he spoke thus, he opened the door of the hall. "Here, at least," he
s