I, "it goes against the grain with me to leave the
maid in such poor hands."

"Ye couldna weel find poorer," he admitted. "But what are ye to do with
it? It's this way about a man and a woman, ye see, Davie: the
weemen-folk have got no kind of reason to them. Either they like the
man, and then a' goes fine; or else they just detest him, and ye may
spare your breath--ye can do naething. There's just the two sets of
them--them that would sell their coats for ye, and them that never look
the road ye're on. That's a' that there is to women; and you seem to be
such a gomeril that ye canna tell the tane frae the tither."

"Well, and I'm afraid that's true for me," said I.

"And yet there's naething easier!" cried Alan. "I could easy learn ye
the science of the thing; but ye seem to me to be born blind, and
there's where the deefficulty comes in!"

"And can _you_ no' help me?" I asked, "you that's so clever at the
trade?"

"Ye see, David, I wasna here," said he. "I'm like a field officer that
has naebody but blind men for scouts and _eclaireurs_; and what would he
ken? But it sticks in my mind that ye'll have made some kind of bauchle;
and if I was you, I would have a try at her again."

"Would ye so, man Alan?" said I.

"I would e'en't," says he.

The third letter came to my hand while we were deep in some such talk;
and it will be seen how pat it fell to the occasion. James professed to
be in some concern upon his daughter's health, which I believe was never
better; abounded in kind expressions to myself; and finally proposed
that I should visit them at Dunkirk.

"You will now be enjoying the society of my old comrade, Mr. Stewart,"
he wrote. "Why not accompany him so far in his return to France? I have
something very particular for Mr. Stewart's ear; and, at any rate, I
would be pleased to meet in with an old fellow-soldier and one so mettle
as himself. As for you, my dear sir, my daughter and I would be proud to
receive our benefactor, whom we regard as a brother and a son. The
French nobleman has proved a person of the most filthy avarice of
character, and I have been necessitate to leave the _haras_. You will
find us, in consequence, a little poorly lodged in the _auberge_ of a
man Bazin on the dunes; but the situation is caller, and I make no doubt
but we might spend some very pleasant days, when Mr. Stewart and I could
recall our services, and you and my daughter divert yourselves in a
manner more befitting