“Excuse me, sir,” rejoined Mrs. Lecount, “there is the Will to be signed first; and there must be two persons found to witness your signature.”  She looked out of the front window, and saw the carriage waiting at the door.  “The coachman will do for one of the witnesses,” she said.  “He is in respectable service at Dumfries, and he can be found if he happens to be wanted.  We must have one of your own servants, I suppose, for the other witness.  They are all de testable women; but the cook is the least ill-looking of the three.  Send for the cook, sir; while I go out and call the coachman.  When we have got our witnesses here, you have only to speak to them in these words:  ’I have a document here to sign, and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my signature.’  Nothing more, Mr. Noel!  Say those few words in your usual manner—­and, when the signing is over, I will see myself to your packing-up, and your warm things.”

She went to the front door, and summoned the coachman to the parlor.  On her return, she found the cook already in the room.  The cook looked mysteriously offended, and stared without intermission at Mrs. Lecount.  In a minute more the coachman—­an elderly man—­came in.  He was preceded by a relishing odor of whisky; but his head was Scotch; and nothing but his odor betrayed him.

“I have a document here to sign,” said Noel Vanstone, repeating his lesson; “and I wish you to write your names on it, as witnesses of my signature.”

The coachman looked at the will.  The cook never removed her eyes from Mrs. Lecount.

“Ye’ll no object, sir,” said the coachman, with the national caution showing itself in every wrinkle on his face—­“ye’ll no object, sir, to tell me, first, what the Doecument may be?”

Mrs. Lecount interposed before Noel Vanstone’s indignation could express itself in words.

“You must tell the man, sir, that this is your Will,” she said.  “When he witnesses your signature, he can see as much for himself if he looks at the top of the page.”

“Ay, ay,” said the coachman, looking at the top of the page immediately.  “His last Will and Testament.  Hech, sirs! there’s a sair confronting of Death in a Doecument like yon!  A’ flesh is grass,” continued the coachman, exhaling an additional puff of whisky, and looking up devoutly at the ceiling.  “Tak’ those words in connection with that other Screepture:  Many are ca’ad, but few are chosen.  Tak’ that again, in connection with Rev’lations, Chapter the First, verses One to Fefteen.  Lay the whole to heart; and what’s your Walth, then?  Dross, sirs!  And your body? (Screepture again.) Clay for the potter!  And your life?  (Screepture once more.) The Breeth o’ your Nostrils!”

The cook listened as if the cook was at church:  but she never removed her eyes from Mrs. Lecount.

“You had better sign, sir.  This is apparently some custom prevalent in Dumfries during the transaction of business,” said Mrs. Lecount, resignedly.  “The man means well, I dare say.”