Chapter 8 - Page 2

be
three-and-twenty."

"Ay, I was in America then," said the mendicant, "and no in the way to
hear the country clashes."

"There was little clash about it, man," replied Macraw; "he liked this
young leddy, ana suld hae married her, but his mother fand it out, and
then the deil gaed o'er Jock Webster. At last, the peer lass clodded
hersell o'er the scaur at the Craigburnfoot into the sea, and there was
an end o't."

"An end ot wi' the puir leddy," said the mendicant, "but, as I reckon,
nae end o't wi' the yerl."

"Nae end o't till his life makes an end," answered the Aberdonian.

"But what for did the auld Countess forbid the marriage?" continued the
persevering querist.

"Fat for!--she maybe didna weel ken for fat hersell, for she gar'd a' bow
to her bidding, right or wrang--But it was ken'd the young leddy was
inclined to some o' the heresies of the country--mair by token, she was
sib to him nearer than our Church's rule admits of. Sae the leddy was
driven to the desperate act, and the yerl has never since held his head
up like a man."

"Weel away!" replied Ochiltree:--"it's e'en queer I neer heard this tale
afore."

"It's e'en queer that ye heard it now, for deil ane o' the servants durst
hae spoken o't had the auld Countess been living. Eh, man, Edie! but she
was a trimmer--it wad hae taen a skeely man to hae squared wi' her!--But
she's in her grave, and we may loose our tongues a bit fan we meet a
friend.--But fare ye weel, Edie--I maun be back to the evening-service.
An' ye come to Inverurie maybe sax months awa, dinna forget to ask after
Francie Macraw."

What one kindly pressed, the other as firmly promised; and the friends
having thus parted, with every testimony of mutual regard, the domestic
of Lord Glenallan took his road back to the seat of his master, leaving
Ochiltree to trace onward his habitual pilgrimage.

It was a fine summer evening, and the world--that is, the little circle
which was all in all to the individual by whom it was trodden, lay before
Edie Ochiltree, for the choosing of his night's quarters. When he had
passed the less hospitable domains of Glenallan, he had in his option so
many places of refuge for the evening, that he was nice, and even
fastidious in the choice. Ailie Sim's public was on the road-side about a
mile before him, but there would be a parcel of young fellows there on
the Saturday night, and that was a bar to civil conversation. Other
"gudemen and gudewives," as the farmers and their dames are termed in
Scotland, successively presented themselves to his imagination. But one