As Hugh entered, he saw his own bright volume lying on the table, evidently that from which David had just been reading.

Margaret had already placed for him a cushioned arm-chair, the only comfortable one in the house; and presently, the table being drawn back, they were all seated round the peat-fire on the hearth, the best sort for keeping feet warm at least.  On the crook, or hooked iron-chain suspended within the chimney, hung a three-footed pot, in which potatoes were boiling away merrily for supper.  By the side of the wide chimney, or more properly lum, hung an iron lamp, of an old classical form common to the country, from the beak of which projected, almost horizontally, the lighted wick—­the pith of a rush.  The light perched upon it was small but clear, and by it David had been reading.  Margaret sat right under it, upon a creepie, or small three-legged wooden stool.  Sitting thus, with the light falling on her from above, Hugh could not help thinking she looked very pretty.  Almost the only object in the distance from which the feeble light was reflected, was the patch-work counterpane of a little bed filling a recess in the wall, fitted with doors which stood open.  It was probably Margaret’s refuge for the night.

“Well,” said the tutor, after they had been seated a few minutes, and had had some talk about the weather—­surely no despicable subject after such a morning—­the first of Spring—­“well, how do you like the English poet, Mr. Elginbrod?”

“Spier that at me this day week, Maister Sutherlan’, an’ I’ll aiblins answer ye; but no the nicht, no the nicht.”

“What for no?” said Hugh, taking up the dialect.

“For ae thing, we’re nae clean through wi’ the auld sailor’s story yet; an’ gin I hae learnt ae thing aboon anither, its no to pass jeedgment upo’ halves.  I hae seen ill weather half the simmer, an’ a thrang corn-yard after an’ a’, an’ that o’ the best.  No that I’m ill pleased wi’ the bonny ballant aither.”

“Weel, will ye jist lat me read the lave o’t till ye?”

“Wi’ muckle pleesur, sir, an’ mony thanks.”

He showed Hugh how far they had got in the reading of the “Ancient Mariner”; whereupon he took up the tale, and carried it on to the end.  He had some facility in reading with expression, and his few affectations—­for it must be confessed he was not free of such faults—­were not of a nature to strike uncritical hearers.  When he had finished, he looked up, and his eye chancing to light upon Margaret first, he saw that her cheek was quite pale, and her eyes overspread with the film, not of coming tears, but of emotion notwithstanding.

“Well,” said Hugh, again, willing to break the silence, and turning towards David, “what do you think of it now you have heard it all?”

Whether Janet interrupted her husband or not, I cannot tell; but she certainly spoke first: 

“Tshavah!”—­equivalent to pshaw—­“it’s a’ lees.  What for are ye knittin’ yer broos ower a leein’ ballant—­a’ havers as weel as lees?”