l table,
where they had lain since the night he died, and hastened to the
battlements.

It was a dangerous place to climb, for the ladder was auld and frail,
and wanted ane or twa rounds. However, up got Sir John, and entered at
the turret door, where his body stopped the only little light that was
in the bit turret. Something flees at him wi' a vengeance, maist dang
him back ower--bang! gaed the knight's pistol, and Hutcheon, that
held the ladder, and my gudesire, that stood beside him, hears a loud
skelloch. A minute after, Sir John flings the body of the jackanape down
to them, and cries that the siller is fund, and that they should come
up and help him. And there was the bag of siller sure aneaugh, and mony
orra thing besides, that had been missing for mony a day. And Sir
John, when he had riped the turret weel, led my gudesire into the
dining-parlour, and took him by the hand, and spoke kindly to him, and
said he was sorry he should have doubted his word, and that he would
hereafter be a good master to him, to make amends.

"And now, Steenie," said Sir John, "although this vision of yours tends,
on the whole, to my father's credit as an honest man, that he should,
even after his death, desire to see justice done to a poor man like
you, yet you are sensible that ill-dispositioned men might make bad
constructions upon it concerning his soul's health. So, I think, we had
better lay the haill dirdum on that ill-deedie creature, Major Weir,
and say naething about your dream in the wood of Pitmurkie. You had taen
ower-muckle brandy to be very certain about onything; and, Steenie, this
receipt"--his hand shook while he held it out--"it's but a queer kind of
document, and we will do best, I think, to put it quietly in the fire."

"Od, but for as queer as it is, it's a' the voucher I have for my rent,"
said my gudesire, who was afraid, it may be, of losing the benefit of
Sir Robert's discharge.

"I will bear the contents to your credit in the rental-book, and give
you a discharge under my own hand," said Sir John, "and that on the
spot. And, Steenie, if you can hold your tongue about this matter, you
shall sit, from this time downward, at an easier rent."

"Mony thanks to your honour," said Steenie, who saw easily in what
corner the wind was; "doubtless I will be conformable to all your
honour's commands; only I would willingly speak wi' some powerful
minister on the subject, for I do not like the sort of soumons of
a