Thus, four of the party set out for Mr. Perrowne’s mid-week service, and four to Mr. Errol’s prayer meeting.  Mr. Lamb did not get much out of Miss Carmichael on the way, and Miss Halbert thought her escort unusually absent-minded.  Coming home, Mr. Perrowne deprived Coristine of his fair charge, and Mr. Errol relieved the Squire of his sister.  Accordingly, the freed cavaliers drew together and conversed upon the events of the day.  Good Mr. Carruthers was startled, when the lawyer expressed his intention of leaving in the morning, as he could be of no further use, and felt he had already trespassed too long upon his generous hospitality.

“Noo, Coristine,” he said, falling into his doric, “what ails ye, man, at the lassie?”

“My dear Squire, I have none but the kindest and most grateful thoughts towards all the ladies.”

“Weel, weel, it’s no for me to be spierin’, but ye maun na gang awa frae’s on accoont o’ yon daft haveral o’ a Lamb.”

“Who is this Mr. Lamb?”

“I ken naething aboot him, foreby that he’s a moothin’ cratur frae the Croon Lans Depairtment, wi’ no owre muckle brains.”

Dropping the subject, the Squire proceeded to tell what he had found in Nash’s papers, and proposed an expedition, ostensibly for fishing, in which the two of them, providing themselves with tools, should prospect for the hidden treasure of the former master of the Select Encampment.  As it was unlikely that any claimant for Rawdon’s property would appear, all that they found would belong to Matilda and her boy, unless it were judged right to indemnify Miss Du Plessis for any injury done to her land.  There was no reason for the lawyer’s departure.  He had another week of leave, which he did not know how to put in.  True, he could not remain until Wilkinson was perfectly well, but it would seem heartless to desert him so soon after he had received his wound.  He had thought of writing the Squire about Miss Carmichael’s position as her deceased father’s next of kin, but it would save trouble to talk it over.  All things considered, Mr. Carruthers did not find it a difficult task to make his pleasant new acquaintance reconsider his decision and commit himself to an indefinite prolongation of Bridesdale hospitality.  Yet, as he entered the gate, he almost repented his weakness, on hearing the eye-glassed Lamb say:  “What ohfully jawlly times we hod, Morjorie, when you and I were sweethorts.”  He wished that he could recall some frightfully injurious and profane expression in a foreign tongue, with which to anathematize the wretched, familiar, conceited Crown Lands Department cad.  While the Squire joined the doctor and the Captain in the office, he went over to a corner in which the pipes of the veteran and Mr. Bigglethorpe were still glowing, and, lighting his own, listened to their military and piscatorial yarns.