knaves
report, yet he will neither answer to us nor admit us."

"So please your worship, Master Bailie," said Simon Glover, "I will go
myself to fetch Henry Smith. I have some little difference to make up
with him. And blessed be Our Lady, who hath so ordered it that I find
him alive, as a quarter of an hour since I could never have expected!"

"Bring the stout smith to the council house," said the bailie, as a
mounted yeoman pressed through the crowd and whispered in his ear, "Here
is a good fellow who says the Knight of Kinfauns is entering the port."

Such was the occasion of Simon Glover presenting himself at the house of
Henry Gow at the period already noticed.

Unrestrained by the considerations of doubt and hesitation which
influenced others, he repaired to the parlour; and having overheard the
bustling of Dame Shoolbred, he took the privilege of intimacy to ascend
to the bedroom, and, with the slight apology of "I crave your pardon,
good neighbour," he opened the door and entered the apartment, where a
singular and unexpected sight awaited him. At the sound of his voice,
May Catharine experienced a revival much speedier than Dame Shoolbred's
restoratives had been able to produce, and the paleness of her
complexion changed into a deep glow of the most lovely red. She pushed
her lover from her with both her hands, which, until this minute, her
want of consciousness, or her affection, awakened by the events of the
morning, had well nigh abandoned to his caresses. Henry Smith, bashful
as we know him, stumbled as he rose up; and none of the party were
without a share of confusion, excepting Dame Shoolbred, who was glad
to make some pretext to turn her back to the others, in order that she
might enjoy a laugh at their expense, which she felt herself utterly
unable to restrain, and in which the glover, whose surprise, though
great, was of short duration, and of a joyful character, sincerely
joined.

"Now, by good St. John," he said, "I thought I had seen a sight this
morning that would cure me of laughter, at least till Lent was over;
but this would make me curl my cheek if I were dying. Why, here stands
honest Henry Smith, who was lamented as dead, and toll'd out for from
every steeple in town, alive, merry, and, as it seems from his ruddy
complexion, as like to live as any man in Perth. And here is my precious
daughter, that yesterday would speak of nothing but the wickedness of
the wights that haunt profane spo