Chapter 26

SCENE AT THE SPITTAL.

Within an hour after I had left him, Waster Lunny walked into the
school-house and handed me his snuff-mull, which I declined
politely. It was with this ceremony that we usually opened our
conversations.

"I've seen the post," he said, and he tells me there has been a
queer ploy at the Spittal. It's a wonder the marriage hasna been
turned into a burial, and all because o' that Highland stirk,
Lauchlan Campbell.

Waster Lunny was a man who had to retrace his steps in telling a
story if he tried short cuts, and so my custom was to wait
patiently while he delved through the ploughed fields that always
lay between him and his destination.

"As you ken, Rintoul's so little o' a Scotchman that he's no
muckle better than an Englisher. That maun be the reason he hadna
mair sense than to tramp on a Highlandman's ancestors, as he tried
to tramp on Lauchlan's this day."

"If Lord Rintoul insulted the piper," I suggested, giving the
farmer a helping hand cautiously, "it would be through
inadvertence. Rintoul only bought the Spittal a year ago, and
until then, I daresay, he had seldom been on our side of the
Border."

This was a foolish, interruption, for it set Walter Lunny off in a
new direction.

"That's what Elspeth says. Says she, 'When the earl has grand
estates in England, what for does he come to a barren place like
the Spittal to be married! It's gey like,' she says, 'as if he
wanted the marriage to be got by quietly; a thing,' says she,
'that no woman can stand. Furthermore,' Elspeth says, 'how has the
marriage been postponed twice?' We ken what the servants at the
Spittal says to that, namely, that the young lady is no keen to
take him, but Elspeth winna listen to sic arguments. She says
either the earl had grown timid (as mony a man does) when the
wedding-day drew near, or else his sister that keeps his house is
mad at the thocht o' losing her place; but as for the young
leddy's being sweer, says Elspeth, 'an earl's an earl however auld
he is, and a lassie's a lassie however young she is, and weel she
kens you're never sure o' a man's no changing his mind about you
till you're tied to him by law, after which it doesna so muckle
matter whether he changes his mind about you or no.' Ay, there's a
quirk in it some gait, dominie; but it's a deep water Elspeth
canna bottom."

"It is," I agreed; "but you were to tell me what Birse told you of
the disturbance at the Spittal."

"Ay, weel." he answered, "the post puts the wite o't on her little
leddyship, as they call her, though she winna be a leddyship till
the morn. All I can say is that if