?"

"Salmon," replied Shanty, "and I mistake if he has not a touch of the
foreigner on his tongue."

"You will accompany me, then Shanty," said the Laird.

"I will," he replied, "if this evening you will open the business out to
Mrs. Margaret."

"It cannot be Shanty," replied Dymock chuckling, "for she does not
expect to be back over the border till to-morrow, and when to-morrow is
over and we know what we are about, then you shall tell her all."

"Dymock," said Shanty, "you are hard upon me, when you have a morsel to
swallow that is too tough for you, you put it into my mouth; but," added
the old man kindly, "there is not much that I would refuse to do for
your father's son."

The sun had not yet risen over the moor, when Dymock and Shanty, both
arrayed in their best, set off for Hexham, where they found the crabbed
old gentlemen, still in the humour of making the purchase, though he
abused the place in language at once rude and petulant; his offer,
however, was, as Shanty compelled Dymock to see, a very fair one, though
the more sensible and wary blacksmith could not persuade his friend to
beware of trusting anything to the honour of Mr. Salmon.

Dymock's estate had been deeply mortgaged, the sale was made subject to
the mortgages, and the purchaser was bound to pay the mortgagee the
mortgage moneys, after which there was small surplus coming to poor
Dymock. This small surplus was, however, paid down on the signing of the
papers; still, however, there was an additional payment to take place
soon after possession.

This payment was, it was supposed, to be for fixtures and other
articles, which were to be left on the premises, and it was not to be
asked till Mr. Salmon had been resident a few weeks. The amount was
between five and six hundred pounds, and was in fact all that Dymock
would have to depend upon besides his cottage, his field, a right of
shooting on the moor, and fishing in a lake which belonged to the
estate, and about twenty pounds a year which appertained to Mrs.
Margaret, from which it was supposed she had made some savings.

Shanty had succeeded in forcing the Laird to listen to the dictates of
prudence, and to act with sufficient caution, till it came to what he
called the dirty part of the work, to wit, the valuation of small
articles, and then was the blood of the Dymocks all up; nor would he
hear of requiring a bond for the payment of this last sum, such a
document, in fact, as should bin