ye
waur--a lord!--set them up and shute them forward--a lord!--the Lord
have a care o' us!--a lord at the hottle!--Maister Touchwood, it's my
mind he will only prove to be a Lord o' Session."

"Nay, not so, my good lady," replied the traveller "he is an English
lord, and, as they say, a Lord of Parliament--but some folk pretend to
say there is a flaw in the title."

"I'll warrant is there--a dozen of them!" said Meg, with alacrity--for
she could by no means endure to think on the accumulation of dignity
likely to accrue to the rival establishment, from its becoming the
residence of an actual nobleman. "I'll warrant he'll prove a landlouping
lord on their hand, and they will be e'en cheap o' the loss--And he has
come down out of order it's like, and nae doubt he'll no be lang there
before he will recover his health, for the credit of the Spaw."

"Faith, madam, his present disorder is one which the Spaw will hardly
cure--he is shot in the shoulder with a pistol-bullet--a robbery
attempted, it seems--that is one of your new accomplishments--no such
thing happened in Scotland in my time--men would have sooner expected to
meet with the phoenix than with a highwayman."

"And where did this happen, if you please, sir?" asked the man of bills.

"Somewhere near the old village," replied the stranger; "and, if I am
rightly informed, on Wednesday last."

"This explains your twa shots, I am thinking, Mrs. Dods," said Mr.
Bindloose; "your groom heard them on the Wednesday--it must have been
this attack on the stranger nobleman."

"Maybe it was, and maybe it was not," said Mrs. Dods; "but I'll see gude
reason before I give up my ain judgment in that case.--I wad like to
ken if this gentleman," she added, returning to the subject from which
Mr. Touchwood's interesting conversation had for a few minutes diverted
her thoughts, "has heard aught of Mr. Tirl?"

"If you mean the person to whom this paper relates," said the stranger,
taking a printed handbill from his pocket, "I heard of little else--the
whole place rang of him, till I was almost as sick of Tyrrel as William
Rufus was. Some idiotical quarrel which he had engaged in, and which he
had not fought out, as their wisdom thought he should have done, was the
principal cause of censure. That is another folly now, which has gained
ground among you. Formerly, two old proud lairds, or cadets of good
family, perhaps, quarrelled, and had a rencontre, or fought a duel after
the fa