person in their eyes connected with a superior order of beings, whose presence used to grace their little festivities, whose advice they found useful on many occasions, and whose communications gave a sort of credit to their village.  The place, they acknowledged, “didna look as it used to do, and should do, since Mr. Caleb keepit the castle sae closely; but doubtless, touching the eggs and butter, it was a most unreasonable demand, as Mr. Dingwall had justly made manifest.”

Thus stood matters betwixt the parties, when the old butler, though it was gall and wormwood to him, found himself obliged either to ackowledge before a strange man of quality, and, what was much worse, before that stranger’s servant, the total inability of Wolf’s Crag to produce a dinner, or he must trust to the compassion of the feuars of Wofl’s Hope.  It was a dreadful degradation; but necessity was equally imperious and lawless.  With these feelings he entered the street of the village.

Willing to shake himself from his companion as soon as possible, he directed Mr. Lockhard to Luckie Sma-trash’s change-house, where a din, proceeding from the revels of Bucklaw, Craigengelt, and their party, sounded half-way down the street, while the red glare from the window overpowered the grey twilight which was now settling down, and glimmered against a parcel of old tubs, kegs, and barrels, piled up in the cooper’s yard, on the other side of the way.

“If you, Mr. Lockhard,” said the old butler to his companion, “will be pleased to step to the change-house where that light comes from, and where, as I judge, they are now singing ‘Cauld Kail in Aberdeen,’ ye may do your master’s errand about the venison, and I will do mine about Bucklaw’s bed, as I return frae getting the rest of the vivers.  It’s no that the venison is actually needfu’,” he added, detaining his colleague by the button, “to make up the dinner; but as a compliment to the hunters, ye ken; and, Mr. Lockhard, if they offer ye a drink o’ yill, or a cup o’ wine, or a glass o’ brandy, ye’ll be a wise man to take it, in case the thunner should hae soured ours at the castle, whilk is ower muckle to be dreaded.”

He then permitted Lockhard to depart; and with foot heavy as lead, and yet far lighter than his heart, stepped on through the unequal street of the straggling village, meditating on whom he ought to make his first attack.  It was necessary he should find some one with whom old acknowledged greatness should weigh more than recent independence, and to whom his application might appear an act of high dignity, relenting at once and soothing.  But he could not recollect an inhabitant of a mind so constructed.  “Our kail is like to be cauld eneugh too,” he reflected, as the chorus of “Cauld Kail in Aberdeen” again reached his ears.  The minister—­he had got his presentation from the late lord, but they had quarrelled about teinds; the brewster’s wife—­she had trusted long, and the bill