upposed Timon of Cleikum, and that was Mr. Mowbray of St.
Ronan's. Through the medium of that venerable character John Pirner,
professed weaver and practical black-fisher in the Aultoun of St.
Ronan's, who usually attended Tyrrel, to show him the casts of the
river, carry his bag, and so forth, the Squire had ascertained that the
judgment of Sir Bingo regarding the disputed weight of the fish was more
correct than his own. This inferred an immediate loss of honour, besides
the payment of a heavy bill. And the consequences might be yet more
serious; nothing short of the emancipation of Sir Bingo, who had
hitherto been Mowbray's convenient shadow and adherent, but who, if
triumphant, confiding in his superiority of judgment upon so important a
point, might either cut him altogether, or expect that, in future, the
Squire, who had long seemed the planet of their set, should be content
to roll around himself, Sir Bingo, in the capacity of a satellite.

The Squire, therefore, devoutly hoped that Tyrrel's restive disposition
might continue, to prevent the decision of the bet, while, at the same
time, he nourished a very reasonable degree of dislike to that stranger,
who had been the indirect occasion of the unpleasant predicament in
which he found himself, by not catching a salmon weighing a pound
heavier. He, therefore, openly censured the meanness of those who
proposed taking further notice of Tyrrel, and referred to the unanswered
letters, as a piece of impertinence which announced him to be no
gentleman.

But though appearances were against him, and though he was in truth
naturally inclined to solitude, and averse to the affectation and
bustle of such a society, that part of Tyrrel's behaviour which
indicated ill-breeding was easily accounted for, by his never having
received the letters which required an answer. Trotting Nelly, whether
unwilling to face her gossip, Meg Dods, without bringing back the
drawing, or whether oblivious through the influence of the double dram
with which she had been indulged at the Well, jumbled off with her cart
to her beloved village of Scate-raw, from which she transmitted the
letters by the first bare-legged gillie who travelled towards Aultoun of
St. Ronan's; so that at last, but after a long delay, they reached the
Cleikum Inn and the hands of Mr. Tyrrel.

The arrival of these documents explained some part of the oddity of
behaviour which had surprised him in his neighbours of the Well;