her had driven from the door with a hastier and
more abject flight than she had in the least intended. But, if his
grandmother should miss him, as Betty suggested, and inquire where he
had been, what was he to say? He did not mind misleading his grannie,
but he had a great objection to telling her a lie. His grandmother
herself delivered him from this difficulty.

'Robert, come here,' she called from the parlour door. And Robert
obeyed.

'Is 't dingin' on, Robert?' she asked.

'No, grannie; it's only a starnie o' drift.'

The meaning of this was that there was no fresh snow falling, or beating
on, only a little surface snow blowing about.

'Weel, jist pit yer shune on, man, and rin up to Miss Naper's upo' the
Squaur, and say to Miss Naper, wi' my compliments, that I wad be sair
obleeged till her gin she wad len' me that fine receipt o' hers for
crappit heids, and I'll sen' 't back safe the morn's mornin'. Rin, noo.'

This commission fell in admirably with Robert's plans, and he started at
once.

CHAPTER III. THE BOAR'S HEAD.

Miss Napier was the eldest of three maiden sisters who kept the
principal hostelry of Rothieden, called The Boar's Head; from which, as
Robert reached the square in the dusk, the mail-coach was moving away
with a fresh quaternion of horses. He found a good many boxes standing
upon the pavement close by the archway that led to the inn-yard,
and around them had gathered a group of loungers, not too cold to be
interested. These were looking towards the windows of the inn, where the
owner of the boxes had evidently disappeared.

'Saw ye ever sic a sicht in oor toon afore!' said Dooble Sanny, as
people generally called him, his name being Alexander Alexander,
pronounced, by those who chose to speak of him with the ordinary respect
due from one mortal to another, Sandy Elshender. Double Sandy was
a soutar, or shoemaker, remarkable for his love of sweet sounds and
whisky. He was, besides, the town-crier, who went about with a drum at
certain hours of the morning and evening, like a perambulating clock,
and also made public announcements of sales, losses, &c.; for the
rest--a fierce, fighting fellow when in anger or in drink, which latter
included the former.

'What's the sicht, Sandy?' asked Robert, coming up with his hands in the
pockets of his trowsers.

'Sic a sicht as ye never saw, man,' returned Sandy; 'the bonniest leddy
ever man set his ee upo'. I culd na hae thocht there had be