nd?" continued the inquisitive
stranger.

"Aha, lad?" retorted Cuddie, with a knowing look, or what he designed for
such,--"there 's nae use in telling that, unless I kend wha was asking
me."

"I commend your prudence, but it is unnecessary; I know you acted on that
occasion as servant to Henry Morton."

"Ay!" said Cuddie, in surprise, "how came ye by that secret? No that I
need care a bodee about it, for the sun's on our side o' the hedge now. I
wish my master were living to get a blink o't."

"And what became of him?" said the rider.

"He was lost in the vessel gaun to that weary Holland,--clean lost; and
a' body perished, and my poor master amang them. Neither man nor mouse
was ever heard o' mair." Then Cuddie uttered a groan.

"You had some regard for him, then?" continued the stranger.

"How could I help it? His face was made of a fiddle, as they say, for a'
body that looked on him liked him. And a braw soldier he was. Oh, an ye
had but seen him down at the brigg there, fleeing about like a fleeing
dragon to gar folk fight that had unto little will till 't! There was he
and that sour Whigamore they ca'd Burley: if twa men could hae won a
field, we wadna hae gotten our skins paid that day."

"You mention Burley: do you know if he yet lives?"

"I kenna muckle about him. Folk say he was abroad, and our sufferers wad
hold no communion wi' him, because o' his having murdered the archbishop.
Sae he cam hame ten times dourer than ever, and broke aff wi' mony o' the
Presbyterians; and at this last coming of the Prince of Orange he could
get nae countenance nor command for fear of his deevilish temper, and he
hasna been heard of since; only some folk say that pride and anger hae
driven him clean wud."

"And--and," said the traveller, after considerable hesitation,--"do you
know anything of Lord Evan dale?"

"Div I ken onything o' Lord Evandale? Div I no? Is not my young leddy up
by yonder at the house, that's as gude as married to him?"

"And are they not married, then?" said the rider, hastily.

"No, only what they ca' betrothed,--me and my wife were witnesses. It's
no mony months bypast; it was a lang courtship,--few folk kend the reason
by Jenny and mysell. But will ye no light down? I downa bide to see ye
sitting up there, and the clouds are casting up thick in the west ower
Glasgow-ward, and maist skeily folk think that bodes rain."

In fact, a deep black cloud had already surmounted the setting sun; a