s-horn yon time. But
what's to be done?"

"I suppose," said Lovel, "his faith in this fellow is entirely restored
by this deception, which, unquestionably, he had arranged beforehand."

"What! the siller?--Ay, ay--trust him for that--they that hide ken best
where to find. He wants to wile him out o' his last guinea, and then
escape to his ain country, the land-louper. I wad likeit weel just
to hae come in at the clipping-time, and gien him a lounder wi' my
pike-staff; he wad hae taen it for a bennison frae some o' the auld dead
abbots. But it's best no to be rash; sticking disna gang by strength,
but by the guiding o' the gally. I'se be upsides wi' him ae day."

"What if you should inform Mr. Oldbuck?" said Lovel.

"Ou, I dinna ken--Monkbarns and Sir Arthur are like, and yet they're no
like neither. Monkbarns has whiles influence wi' him, and whiles Sir
Arthur cares as little about him as about the like o' me. Monkbarns is
no that ower wise himsell, in some things;--he wad believe a bodle to
be an auld Roman coin, as he ca's it, or a ditch to be a camp, upon ony
leasing that idle folk made about it. I hae garr'd him trow mony a
queer tale mysell, gude forgie me. But wi' a' that, he has unco little
sympathy wi' ither folks; and he's snell and dure eneugh in casting up
their nonsense to them, as if he had nane o' his ain. He'll listen the
hale day, an yell tell him about tales o' Wallace, and Blind Harry, and
Davie Lindsay; but ye maunna speak to him about ghaists or fairies, or
spirits walking the earth, or the like o' that;--he had amaist flung auld
Caxon out o' the window (and he might just as weel hae flung awa
his best wig after him), for threeping he had seen a ghaist at the
humlock-knowe. Now, if he was taking it up in this way, he wad set up
the tother's birse, and maybe do mair ill nor gude--he's done that
twice or thrice about thae mine-warks; ye wad thought Sir Arthur had a
pleasure in gaun on wi' them the deeper, the mair he was warned against
it by Monkbarns."

"What say you then," said Lovel, "to letting Miss Wardour know the
circumstance?"

"Ou, puir thing, how could she stop her father doing his pleasure?--and,
besides, what wad it help? There's a sough in the country about that
six hundred pounds, and there's a writer chield in Edinburgh has been
driving the spur-rowels o' the law up to the head into Sir Arthur's
sides to gar him pay it, and if he canna, he maun gang to jail or flee
the country. He