nge.

"And what is my lord pleased to mean by that?" I asked.

"I was just marvelling," he replied, "that being so clever as to draw
these inferences, you should not be clever enough to keep them to
yourself. But I think you would like to hear the details of the affair.
I have received two versions: and the least official is the more full
and far the more entertaining, being from the lively pen of my eldest
daughter. 'Here is all the town bizzing with a fine piece of work,' she
writes, 'and what would make the thing more noted (if it were only
known) the malefactor is a _protegee_ of his lordship my papa. I am sure
your heart is too much in your duty (if it were nothing else) to have
forgotten Grey Eyes. What does she do, but get a broad hat with the
flaps open, a long hairy-like man's great-coat, and a big gravatt; kilt
her coats up to _Gude kens whaur_, clap two pair of boot-hose upon her
legs, take a pair of _clouted brogues_[15] in her hand, and off to the
Castle? Here she gives herself out to be a soutar[16] in the employ of
James More, and gets admitted to his cell, the lieutenant (who seems to
have been full of pleasantry) making sport among his soldiers of the
soutar's great-coat. Presently they hear disputation and the sound of
blows inside. Out flies the cobbler, his coat flying, the flaps of his
hat beat about his face, and the lieutenant and his soldiers mock at him
as he runs off. They laughed not so hearty the next time they had
occasion to visit the cell, and found nobody but a tall, pretty,
grey-eyed lass in the female habit! As for the cobbler, he was "over the
hills ayont Dumblane," and it's thought that poor Scotland will have to
console herself without him. I drank Catriona's health this night in
public. Indeed, the whole town admires her; and I think the beaux would
wear bits of her garters in their button-holes if they could only get
them. I would have gone to visit her in prison too, only I remembered in
time I was papa's daughter; so I wrote her a billet instead, which I
entrusted to the faithful Doig, and I hope you will admit I can be
political when I please. The same faithful gomeral is to despatch this
letter by the express along with those of the wiseacres, so that you may
hear Tom Fool in company with Solomon. Talking of _gomerals_, do tell
_Dauvit Balfour_. I would I could see the face of him at the thought of
a long-legged lass in such a predicament! to say nothing of the levities
of you