‘I declare to heaven I never thought to count!’ I exclaimed.  ’But that is soon remedied.’

And I counted out ten notes of ten pound each, all in the name of Abraham Newlands, and five bills of country bankers for as many guineas.

‘One hundred and twenty six pound five,’ cried the old lady.  ’And you carry such a sum about you, and have not so much as counted it!  If you are not a thief, you must allow you are very thief-like.’

‘And yet, madam, the money is legitimately mine,’ said I.

She took one of the bills and held it up.  ’Is there any probability, now, that this could be traced?’ she asked.

‘None, I should suppose; and if it were, it would be no matter,’ said I.  ’With your usual penetration, you guessed right.  An Englishman brought it me.  It reached me, through the hands of his English solicitor, from my great-uncle, the Comte de Keroual de Saint-Yves, I believe the richest emigre in London.’

‘I can do no more than take your word for it,’ said she.

‘And I trust, madam, not less,’ said I.

‘Well,’ said she, ’at this rate the matter may be feasible.  I will cash one of these five-guinea bills, less the exchange, and give you silver and Scots notes to bear you as far as the border.  Beyond that, Mosha the Viscount, you will have to depend upon yourself.’

I could not but express a civil hesitation as to whether the amount would suffice, in my case, for so long a journey.

‘Ay,’ said she, ’but you havenae heard me out.  For if you are not too fine a gentleman to travel with a pair of drovers, I believe I have found the very thing, and the Lord forgive me for a treasonable old wife!  There are a couple stopping up by with the shepherd-man at the farm; to-morrow they will take the road for England, probably by skriegh of day—­and in my opinion you had best be travelling with the stots,’ said she.

’For Heaven’s sake do not suppose me to be so effeminate a character!’ I cried.  ’An old soldier of Napoleon is certainly beyond suspicion.  But, dear lady, to what end? and how is the society of these excellent gentlemen supposed to help me?’

‘My dear sir,’ said she, ’you do not at all understand your own predicament, and must just leave your matters in the hands of those who do.  I dare say you have never even heard tell of the drove-roads or the drovers; and I am certainly not going to sit up all night to explain it to you.  Suffice it, that it is me who is arranging this affair—­the more shame to me!—­and that is the way ye have to go.  Ronald,’ she continued, ’away up-by to the shepherds; rowst them out of their beds, and make it perfectly distinct that Sim is not to leave till he has seen me.’

Ronald was nothing loath to escape from his aunt’s neighbourhood, and left the room and the cottage with a silent expedition that was more like flight than mere obedience.  Meanwhile the old lady turned to her niece.