keeping company
with Quakers, and such other cattle as the road affords?'

'The old lady DIED, I have heard,' said Nanty, affecting a moderation
which was belied by accents that faltered with passion.

'She might live or die, for what I care,' answered Peter the Cruel;
'what business have folk to do to live that canna live as law will, and
satisfy their just and lawful creditors?'

'And you--you that are now yourself trodden down in the very kennel,
are you not sorry for what you have done? Do you not repent having
occasioned the poor widow woman's death?'

'What for should I repent?' said Peter; 'the law was on my side--a
decreet of the bailies, followed by poinding, and an act of warding--a
suspension intented, and the letters found orderly proceeded. I followed
the auld rudas through twa courts--she cost me mair money than her lugs
were worth.'

'Now, by Heaven!' said Nanty, 'I would give a thousand guineas, if I had
them, to have you worth my beating! Had you said you repented, it had
been between God and your conscience; but to hear you boast of your
villany--Do you think it little to have reduced the aged to famine, and
the young to infamy--to have caused the death of one woman, the ruin of
another, and to have driven a man to exile and despair? By Him that made
me, I can scarce keep hands off you!

'Off me? I defy ye!' said Peter. 'I take this honest man to witness that
if ye stir the neck of my collar, I will have my action for stouthreif,
spulzie, oppression, assault and battery. Here's a bra' din, indeed,
about an auld wife gaun to the grave, a young limmer to the close-heads
and causeway, and a sticket stibbler [A student of divinity who has not
been able to complete his studies on theology.] to the sea instead of
the gallows!'

'Now, by my soul,' said Nanty, 'this is too much! and since you can feel
no otherwise, I will try if I cannot beat some humanity into your head
and shoulders.'

He drew his hanger as he spoke, and although Joshua, who had in vain
endeavoured to interrupt the dialogue to which he foresaw a violent
termination, now threw himself between Nanty and the old litigant, he
could not prevent the latter from receiving two or three sound slaps
over the shoulder with the flat side of the weapon.

Poor Peter Peebles, as inglorious in his extremity as he had been
presumptuous in bringing it on, now ran and roared, and bolted out of
the apartment and house itself, pursued by Nanty, whose