"O, but ye maun stay his hame-coming," said the dame. "I aye telled
the gudeman ye meant weel to him; but he taks the tout at every bit
lippening word."

"Aweel, I'll stay the last minute I can."

"And so," said the handsome young spouse of Mr. Girder, "ye think this
Miss Ashton is weel-favoured? Troth, and sae should she, to set up for
our young lord, with a face and a hand, and a seat on his horse, that
might become a king's son. D'ye ken that he aye glowers up at my window,
Mr. Balderstone, when he chaunces to ride thro' the town? Sae I hae a
right to ken what like he is, as weel as ony body."

"I ken that brawly," said Caleb, "for I hae heard his lordship say the
cooper's wife had the blackest ee in the barony; and I said, 'Weel may
that be, my lord, for it was her mither's afore her, as I ken to my
cost.' Eh, Marion? Ha, ha, ha! Ah! these were merry days!"

"Hout awa', auld carle," said the old dame, "to speak sic daffing to
young folk. But, Jean--fie, woman, dinna ye hear the bairn greet? I'se
warrant it's that dreary weid has come ower't again."

Up got mother and grandmother, and scoured away, jostling each other as
they ran, into some remote corner of the tenement, where the young hero
of the evening was deposited. When Caleb saw the coast fairly clear,
he took an invigorating pinch of snuff, to sharpen and confirm his
resolution.

"Cauld be my cast," thought he, "if either Bide-the-Bent or Girder taste
that broach of wild-fowl this evening"; and then addressing the eldest
turnspit, a boy of about eleven years old, and putting a penny into his
hand, he said, "Here is twal pennies, my man; carry that ower to Mrs.
Sma'trash, and bid her fill my mill wi' snishing, and I'll turn the
broche for ye in the mean time; and she will gie ye a ginge-bread snap
for your pains."

No sooner was the elder boy departed on this mission than Caleb, looking
the remaining turnspit gravely and steadily in the face, removed from
the fire the spit bearing the wild-fowl of which he had undertaken the
charge, clapped his hat on his head, and fairly marched off with it,
he stopped at the door of the change-house only to say, in a few brief
words, that Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw was not to expect a bed that evening
in the castle.

If this message was too briefly delivered by Caleb, it became absolute
rudeness when conveyed through the medium of a suburb landlady; and
Bucklaw was, as a more calm and temperate man might have been, h