digoat's
grave when I was looking for a place as to put away some little trumpery
coins, just to play one little trick on my dear friend Sir Arthur, for a
little sport and pleasures. Yes, I did take some what you call rubbish,
and did discover Maister Mishdigoat's own monumentsh-- It's like dat he
meant I should be his heirs--so it would not be civility in me not to
come mineself for mine inheritance."

"At twal o'clock, then," said the mendicant, "we meet under this tree.
I'll watch for a while, and see that naebody meddles wi' the grave--it's
only saying the laird's forbade it--then get my bit supper frae Ringan
the poinder up by, and leave to sleep in his barn; and I'll slip out at
night, and neer be mist."

"Do so, mine goot Maister Edie, and I will meet you here on this very
place, though all de spirits should moan and sneeze deir very brains
out."

So saying he shook hands with the old man, and with this mutual pledge
of fidelity to their appointment, they separated for the present.

CHAPTER FOURTH.

--See thou shake the bags
Of hoarding abbots; angels imprisoned
Set thou at liberty--
Bell, book, and candle, shall not drive me back,
If gold and silver beckon to come on.
King John.

The night set in stormy, with wind and occasional showers of rain. "Eh,
sirs," said the old mendicant, as he took his place on the sheltered
side of the large oak-tree to wait for his associate--"Eh, sirs, but
human nature's a wilful and wilyard thing!--Is it not an unco lucre o'
gain wad bring this Dousterdivel out in a blast o' wind like this, at
twal o'clock at night, to thir wild gousty wa's?--and amna I a bigger
fule than himsell to bide here waiting for him?"

Having made these sage reflections, he wrapped himself close in his
cloak, and fixed his eye on the moon as she waded amid the stormy and
dusky clouds, which the wind from time to time drove across her surface.
The melancholy and uncertain gleams that she shot from between the
passing shadows fell full upon the rifted arches and shafted windows of
the old building, which were thus for an instant made distinctly visible
in their ruinous state, and anon became again a dark, undistinguished,
and shadowy mass. The little lake had its share of these transient beams
of light, and showed its waters broken, whitened,