ked down his head, and said he couldn't
sing, but this encouraging invitation of the master's was echoed all
round the table. It was a conversational opportunity: everybody could
say, "Come, Tim," except Alick, who never relaxed into the frivolity of
unnecessary speech. At last, Tim's next neighbour, Ben Tholoway, began
to give emphasis to his speech by nudges, at which Tim, growing rather
savage, said, "Let me alooan, will ye? Else I'll ma' ye sing a toon ye
wonna like." A good-tempered waggoner's patience has limits, and Tim was
not to be urged further.

"Well, then, David, ye're the lad to sing," said Ben, willing to show
that he was not discomfited by this check. "Sing 'My loove's a roos
wi'out a thorn.'"

The amatory David was a young man of an unconscious abstracted
expression, which was due probably to a squint of superior intensity
rather than to any mental characteristic; for he was not indifferent to
Ben's invitation, but blushed and laughed and rubbed his sleeve over his
mouth in a way that was regarded as a symptom of yielding. And for some
time the company appeared to be much in earnest about the desire to hear
David's song. But in vain. The lyricism of the evening was in the cellar
at present, and was not to be drawn from that retreat just yet.

Meanwhile the conversation at the head of the table had taken a
political turn. Mr. Craig was not above talking politics occasionally,
though he piqued himself rather on a wise insight than on specific
information. He saw so far beyond the mere facts of a case that really
it was superfluous to know them.

"I'm no reader o' the paper myself," he observed to-night, as he filled
his pipe, "though I might read it fast enough if I liked, for there's
Miss Lyddy has 'em and 's done with 'em i' no time. But there's Mills,
now, sits i' the chimney-corner and reads the paper pretty nigh
from morning to night, and when he's got to th' end on't he's more
addle-headed than he was at the beginning. He's full o' this peace now,
as they talk on; he's been reading and reading, and thinks he's got to
the bottom on't. 'Why, Lor' bless you, Mills,' says I, 'you see no more
into this thing nor you can see into the middle of a potato. I'll tell
you what it is: you think it'll be a fine thing for the country. And I'm
not again' it--mark my words--I'm not again' it. But it's my opinion as
there's them at the head o' this country as are worse enemies to us
nor Bony and all the mounseer