r other folk's. _My_ gude name, indeed!"

"Weel, weel, Mrs. Dods, I was mista'en, that's a'," said the writer, "I
was mista'en; and I dare to say you would haud your ain wi' your
neighbours as weel as ony woman in the land--But let us hear now what
the grief is, in one word."

"In one word, then, Clerk Bindloose, it is little short of--murder,"
said Meg, in a low tone, as if the very utterance of the word startled
her.

"Murder! murder, Mrs. Dods?--it cannot be--there is not a word of it in
the Sheriff-office--the Procurator-fiscal kens nothing of it--there
could not be murder in the country, and me not hear of it--for God's
sake, take heed what you say, woman, and dinna get yourself into
trouble."

"Mr. Bindloose, I can but speak according to my lights," said Mrs. Dods;
"you are in a sense a judge in Israel, at least you are one of the
scribes having authority--and I tell you, with a wae and bitter heart,
that this puir callant of mine that was lodging in my house has been
murdered or kidnapped awa amang thae banditti folk down at the New Waal;
and I'll have the law put in force against them, if it should cost me a
hundred pounds."

The Clerk stood much astonished at the nature of Meg's accusation, and
the pertinacity with which she seemed disposed to insist upon it.

"I have this comfort," she continued, "that whatever has happened, it
has been by no fault of mine, Mr. Bindloose; for weel I wot, before that
bloodthirsty auld half-pay Philistine, MacTurk, got to speech of him, I
clawed his cantle to some purpose with my hearth-besom.--But the poor
simple bairn himsell, that had nae mair knowledge of the wickedness of
human nature than a calf has of a flesher's gully, he threepit to see
the auld hardened bloodshedder, and trysted wi' him to meet wi' some of
the gang at an hour certain that same day, and awa he gaed to keep
tryst, but since that hour naebody ever has set een on him.--And the
mansworn villains now want to put a disgrace on him, and say that he
fled the country rather than face them!--a likely story--fled the
country for them!--and leave his bill unsettled--him that was sae
regular--and his portmantle and his fishing-rod and the pencils and
pictures he held sic a wark about!--It's my faithful belief, Mr.
Bindloose--and ye may trust me or no as ye like--that he had some foul
play between the Cleikum and the Buck-stane. I have thought it, and I
have dreamed it, and I will be at the bottom of it, or my