mas. There's naebody at the Gairdens
noo, but there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised body wi' a
face like bend-leather. Tam Robison used to bide at the South Lodge,
but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took the bairns to
her guidsire up at the Garpleheid. I seen the man that's in the South
Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin' my denner--a shilpit body
and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as ither folk run. He's no'
bonny to look at.. I canna think what the factor's ettlin' at to let
sic ill-faured chiels come about the toun."

Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem. She sat very
straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird, and
primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.

"Wha bides in the Big House?" he asked. "Huntingtower is the name,
isn't it?"

"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and Huntingtower
was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end. But naething wad serve
the last laird's father but he maun change the name, for he was clean
daft about what they ca' antickities. Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose?
Naebody, since the young laird dee'd. It's standin' cauld and lanely
and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest dwallin' in a' Carrick."

Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic. "It's a queer warld wi'out the auld
gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him served the
Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them, and afore I
mairried I was ane o' the table-maids. They were kind folk, the
Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o' them that
served them. Sic merry nichts I've seen in the auld Hoose, at
Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and the waddin's o'
the young leddies! But the laird bode to waste his siller in stane and
lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns. And now they're a'
scattered or deid."

Her grave face wore the tenderness which comes from affectionate
reminiscence.

"There was never sic a laddie as young Maister Quentin. No' a week
gaed by but he was in here, cryin', 'Phemie Morran, I've come till my
tea!' Fine he likit my treacle scones, puir man. There wasna ane in
the countryside sae bauld a rider at the hunt, or sic a skeely fisher.
And he was clever at his books tae, a graund scholar, they said, and
ettlin' at bein' what they ca' a dipplemat, But that' a' bye wi'."

"Quentin Kennedy--the fellow in the Tins?" Heritage as