room. The cook looked
mysteriously offended, and stared without intermission at Mrs. Lecount.
In a minute more the coachman--an elderly man--came in. He was preceded
by a relishing odor of whisky; but his head was Scotch; and nothing but
his odor betrayed him.

"I have a document here to sign," said Noel Vanstone, repeating his
lesson; "and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my
signature."

The coachman looked at the will. The cook never removed her eyes from
Mrs. Lecount.

"Ye'll no object, sir," said the coachman, with the national caution
showing itself in every wrinkle on his face--"ye'll no object, sir, to
tell me, first, what the Doecument may be?"

Mrs. Lecount interposed before Noel Vanstone's indignation could express
itself in words.

"You must tell the man, sir, that this is your Will," she said. "When he
witnesses your signature, he can see as much for himself if he looks at
the top of the page."

"Ay, ay," said the coachman, looking at the top of the page immediately.
"His last Will and Testament. Hech, sirs! there's a sair confronting
of Death in a Doecument like yon! A' flesh is grass," continued the
coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, and looking up
devoutly at the ceiling. "Tak' those words in connection with that other
Screepture: Many are ca'ad, but few are chosen. Tak' that again, in
connection with Rev'lations, Chapter the First, verses One to Fefteen.
Lay the whole to heart; and what's your Walth, then? Dross, sirs! And
your body? (Screepture again.) Clay for the potter! And your life?
(Screepture once more.) The Breeth o' your Nostrils!"

The cook listened as if the cook was at church: but she never removed
her eyes from Mrs. Lecount.

"You had better sign, sir. This is apparently some custom prevalent
in Dumfries during the transaction of business," said Mrs. Lecount,
resignedly. "The man means well, I dare say."

She added those last words in a soothing tone, for she saw that Noel
Vanstone's indignation was fast merging into alarm. The coachman's
outburst of exhortation seemed to have inspired him with fear, as well
as disgust.

He dipped the pen in the ink, and signed the Will without uttering a
word. The coachman (descending instantly from Theology to Business)
watched the signature with the most scrupulous attention; and signed his
own name as witness, with an implied commentary on the proceeding, in
the form of another puff of whisky, exhaled thr