h took his seat in a roughly carved chair
of state at the head of the table; but before doing so treated me to
another surprise by muttering a Latin grace and crossing himself. Up
to now I had taken it for granted he was a member of the Scottish
Kirk. I glanced at the minister in some mystification; but he, good
man, appeared to have fallen into a brown study, with his eyes
fastened upon a dish of apples which adorned the centre of our
promiscuously furnished board.

Of the furniture of our meal I can only say that poverty and decent
appearance kept up a brave fight throughout. The table-cloth was
ragged, but spotlessly clean; the silver-ware scanty and worn with
high polishing. The plates and glasses displayed a noble range of
patterns, but were for the most part chipped or cracked. Each knife
had been worn to a point, and a few of them joggled in their handles.
In a lull of the talk I caught myself idly counting the darns in my
table-napkin. They were--if I remember--fourteen, and all exquisitely
stitched. The dinner, on the other hand, would have tempted men far
less hungry than we--grilled steaks of salmon, a roast haunch of
venison, grouse, a milk-pudding, and, for dessert, the dish of apples
already mentioned; the meats washed down with one wine only, but that
wine was claret, and beautifully sound. I should mention that we were
served by a grey-haired retainer, almost stone deaf, and as hopelessly
cracked as the gong with which he had beaten us to dinner. In the long
waits between the courses we heard him quarrelling outside with
the woman who had admitted us; and gradually--I know not how--the
conviction grew on me that they were man and wife, and the only
servants of our host's establishment. To cover the noise of one of
their altercations I began to congratulate the Laird on the quality of
his venison, and put some idle question about his care for his deer.

"I have no deer-forest," he answered. "Elspeth is my only
housekeeper."

I had some reply on my lips, when my attention was distracted by a
sudden movement by the Rev. Samuel Saul. This honest man had, as we
shook hands in the great hall, broken into a flood of small talk.
On our way to the dining-room he took me, so to speak, by the
button-hole, and within the minute so drenched me with gossip about
Ardlaugh, its climate, its scenery, its crops, and the dimensions of
the parish, that I feared a whole evening of boredom lay before us.
But from the mome