e renewed their out-of-doors
vocation--for sorrow with them affords no respite from labour,--and we
will visit the old woman Elspeth alone, and take down her examination."

After a formal apology for the encroachment, Lord Glenallan agreed to
go with him, and underwent with patience in their return home the whole
history of John of the Girnel, a legend which Mr. Oldbuck was never
known to spare any one who crossed his threshold.

The arrival of a stranger of such note, with two saddle-horses and a
servant in black, which servant had holsters on his saddle-bow, and a
coronet upon the holsters, created a general commotion in the house of
Monkbarns. Jenny Rintherout, scarce recovered from the hysterics which
she had taken on hearing of poor Steenie's misfortune, chased about
the turkeys and poultry, cackled and screamed louder than they did,
and ended by killing one-half too many. Miss Griselda made many wise
reflections on the hot-headed wilfulness of her brother, who had
occasioned such devastation, by suddenly bringing in upon them a papist
nobleman. And she ventured to transmit to Mr. Blattergowl some hint of
the unusual slaughter which had taken place in the basse-cour, which
brought the honest clergyman to inquire how his friend Monkbarns had
got home, and whether he was not the worse of being at the funeral, at
a period so near the ringing of the bell for dinner, that the Antiquary
had no choice left but to invite him to stay and bless the meat. Miss
M'Intyre had on her part some curiosity to see this mighty peer, of
whom all had heard, as an eastern caliph or sultan is heard of by his
subjects, and felt some degree of timidity at the idea of encountering a
person, of whose unsocial habits and stern manners so many stories were
told, that her fear kept at least pace with her curiosity. The aged
housekeeper was no less flustered and hurried in obeying the numerous
and contradictory commands of her mistress, concerning preserves, pastry
and fruit, the mode of marshalling and dishing the dinner, the necessity
of not permitting the melted butter to run to oil, and the danger of
allowing Juno--who, though formally banished from the parlour, failed not
to maraud about the out-settlements of the family--to enter the kitchen.

The only inmate of Monkbarns who remained entirely indifferent on this
momentous occasion was Hector M'Intyre, who cared no more for an
Earl than he did for a commoner, and who was only interested in