to trouble, and it cam' to be
known that a man could get a dram if he paid for it, and as much as he
liked to be payin' for. Well, well, a stranger cam' in one day and
asked refreshment and got it, and then he plankit down a gowden guinea
and waited for his change, for the stranger was a ganger, and here was
a capture just waitin' for him.

"Well, he waited and waited and cracked away wi' the lass, for there
seemed nobody about but just Meg the gleevitch, and she had talk eno'
for five men, and a trim pair o' ankles forbye.

"'I'll be goin' now, mistress,' says the stranger, rising.

"'I'm sorry for that,' says Meg, and looked as if she meant it.

"'If ye'll just give me my change. . . .'

"'Change!' she cries, 'God save us, change; we sell naething here,' and
she lifted the guinea oot the old jug on the shelf and handed it back.
'I thought it was just a present,' says she, makin' eyes at him, 'for a
thankfu' man's free wi' his siller. Ye were lucky to get the only drop
o' drink in the hoose,'--and that was true enough, for the time they
had been talkin' and Meg kiltin' her skirt tae kind o' divert the
stranger's attention, the lads had the keg in a safe place. Aweel, and
so he had just to take shank's mare for it. I'll come back tae the
hole in the wa'. There was one in the old house, and Meg cut a divot
and stuffed the hole wi' it if there was nae danger, and if she had
word o' excisemen or gaugers on the lookout for smuggling she took the
turf oot, and that's how the place got it's name (and why we pass the
word that the 'turf's in' if there's word o' a run), but it must have
hurt Meg to gie back the guinea, for she's a wild long eye for siller."

We were now close to a white house, stone built and thatched, set among
big plane-trees, and looking to the sea. At the door I heard Gaelic
songs and great laughing, and then we went inside. At first I saw
nothing but two ship's lanthorns, swung from hooks such as we use to
hang hams on, and the blazing fire, where a ship's timber burned with
wee blue flames licking out, as the fire got at the salt of the seven
seas. Then I made out the swarthy faces turned to us, and heard Dan's
name voiced by the revellers, and a woman, stout built and perky but
still young, that I took to be Meg the gleevitch, from her bird-like
way of making little rushes, or, as we express it, "fleein' at things,"
brought us steaming glasses of toddy, so strong that I think she had
watere