wife, who stood much in awe of him, durst not reply, but her mother
bustled up to her support, with arms disposed as if they were about to
be a-kimbo at the next reply.--"I gied them to an acquaintance of mine,
Gibbie Girder; and what about it now?"

Her excess of assurance struck Girder mute for an instant. "And YE gied
the wild-fowl, the best end of our christening dinner, to a friend of
yours, ye auld rudas! And what might HIS name be, I pray ye?"

"Just worthy Mr. Caleb Balderstone--frae Wolf's Crag," answered Marion,
prompt and prepared for battle.

Girder's wrath foamed over all restraint. If there was a circumstance
which could have added to the resentment he felt, it was that this
extravagant donation had been made in favour of our friend Caleb,
towards whom, for reasons to which the reader is no stranger, he
nourished a decided resentment. He raised his riding-wand against the
elder matron, but she stood firm, collected in herself, and undauntedly
brandished the iron ladle with which she had just been "flambing"
(Anglice, basting) the roast of mutton. Her weapon was certainly the
better, and her arm not the weakest of the two; so that Gilbert thought
it safest to turn short off upon his wife, who had by this time hatched
a sort of hysterical whine, which greatly moved the minister, who was in
fact as simple and kind-hearted a creature as ever breathed. "And you,
ye thowless jade, to sit still and see my substance disponed upon to
an idle, drunken, reprobate, worm-eaten serving-man, just because he
kittles the lugs o' a silly auld wife wi' useless clavers, and every twa
words a lee? I'll gar you as gude----"

Here the minister interposed, both by voice and action, while Dame
Lightbody threw herself in front of her daughter, and flourished her
ladle.

"Am I no to chastise my ain wife?" exclaimed the cooper very
indignantly.

"Ye may chastise your ain wife if ye like," answered Dame Lightbody;
"but ye shall never lay finger on my daughter, and that ye may found
upon." "For shame, Mr. Girder!" said the clergyman; "this is what I
little expected to have seen of you, that you suld give rein to your
sinful passions against your nearest and your dearest, and this night
too, when ye are called to the most solemn duty of a Christian parent;
and a' for what? For a redundancy of creature-comforts, as worthless as
they are unneedful."

"Worthless!" exclaimed the cooper. "A better guse never walkit on
stubble; two