ntil the almoner had
returned into the house with slow and solemn steps, Francie Macraw
introduced his old comrade into the court of Glenallan House, the gloomy
gateway of which was surmounted by a huge scutcheon, in which the herald
and undertaker had mingled, as usual, the emblems of human pride and of
human nothingness,--the Countess's hereditary coat-of-arms, with all
its numerous quarterings, disposed in a lozenge, and surrounded by the
separate shields of her paternal and maternal ancestry, intermingled
with scythes, hour glasses, skulls, and other symbols of that mortality
which levels all distinctions. Conducting his friend as speedily as
possible along the large paved court, Macraw led the way through a
side-door to a small apartment near the servants' hall, which, in virtue
of his personal attendance upon the Earl of Glenallan, he was entitled
to call his own. To produce cold meat of various kinds, strong beer,
and even a glass of spirits, was no difficulty to a person of Francis's
importance, who had not lost, in his sense of conscious dignity, the
keen northern prudence which recommended a good understanding with the
butler. Our mendicant envoy drank ale, and talked over old stories
with his comrade, until, no other topic of conversation occurring, he
resolved to take up the theme of his embassy, which had for some time
escaped his memory.

"He had a petition to present to the Earl," he said;--for he judged
it prudent to say nothing of the ring, not knowing, as he afterwards
observed, how far the manners of a single soldier* might have been
corrupted by service in a great house.

* A single soldier means, in Scotch, a private soldier.

"Hout, tout, man," said Francie, "the Earl will look at nae petitions--
but I can gie't to the almoner."

"But it relates to some secret, that maybe my lord wad like best to
see't himsell."

"I'm jeedging that's the very reason that the almoner will be for seeing
it the first and foremost."

"But I hae come a' this way on purpose to deliver it, Francis, and ye
really maun help me at a pinch."

"Neer speed then if I dinna," answered the Aberdeenshire man: "let them
be as cankered as they like, they can but turn me awa, and I was
just thinking to ask my discharge, and gang down to end my days at
Inverurie."

With this doughty resolution of serving his friend at all ventures,
since none was to be encountered which could much inconvenience himself,
Francie Macraw left t