that pleased me strangely; I saw her now
in a sudden nearness of relation, as the daughter of my blood-foe, and,
I might say, my murderer. I reflected it was hard I should be so plagued
and persecuted all my days for other folk's affairs, and have no manner
of pleasure myself. I got meals and a bed to sleep in when my concerns
would suffer it; beyond that my wealth was of no help to me. If I was to
hang, my days were like to be short; if I was not to hang, but to escape
out of this trouble, they might yet seem long to me ere I was done with
them. Of a sudden her face appeared in my memory, the way I had first
seen it, with the parted lips; at that, weakness came in my bosom and
strength into my legs; and I set resolutely forward on the way to Dean.
If I was to hang to-morrow, and it was sure enough I might very likely
sleep that night in a dungeon, I determined I should hear and speak once
more with Catriona.

The exercise of walking and the thought of my destination braced me yet
more, so that I began to pluck up a kind of spirit. In the village of
Dean, where it sits in the bottom of a glen beside the river, I inquired
my way of a miller's man, who sent me up the hill upon the farther side
by a plain path, and so to a decent-like small house in a garden of
lawns and apple-trees. My heart beat high as I stepped inside the garden
hedge, but it fell low indeed when I came face to face with a grim and
fierce old lady, walking there in a white mutch with a man's hat
strapped upon the top of it.

"What do ye come seeking here?" she asked.

I told her I was after Miss Drummond.

"And what may be your business with Miss Drummond?" says she.

I told her I had met her on Saturday last, had been so fortunate as to
render her a trifling service, and was come now on the young lady's
invitation.

"O, so you're Saxpence!" she cried, with a very sneering manner. "A braw
gift, a bonny gentleman. And hae ye ony ither name and designation, or
were ye bapteesed Saxpence?" she asked.

I told my name.

"Preserve me!" she cried. "Has Ebenezer gotten a son?"

"No, ma'am," said I. "I am a son of Alexander's. It's I that am the
Laird of Shaws."

"Ye'll find your work cut out for ye to establish that," quoth she.

"I perceive you know my uncle," said I; "and I daresay you may be the
better pleased to hear that business is arranged."

"And what brings ye here after Miss Drummond?" she pursued.

"I'm come after my saxpence, mem,"