‘Hush!  Meg, hush! hush! that’s not safe talk.’

‘What does she mean?’ said Mannering to Sampson, in an undertone.

‘Fire-raising,’ answered the laconic Dominie.

‘Who, or what is she, in the name of wonder?’

‘Harlot, thief, witch, and gipsy,’ answered Sampson again.

‘O troth, Laird,’ continued Meg, during this by-talk, ’it’s but to the like o’ you ane can open their heart; ye see, they say Dunbog is nae mair a gentleman than the blunker that’s biggit the bonnie house down in the howm.  But the like o’ you, Laird, that’s a real gentleman for sae mony hundred years, and never hunds puir fowk aff your grund as if they were mad tykes, nane o’ our fowk wad stir your gear if ye had as mony capons as there’s leaves on the trysting-tree.  And now some o’ ye maun lay down your watch, and tell me the very minute o’ the hour the wean’s born, an I’ll spae its fortune.’

’Ay, but, Meg, we shall not want your assistance, for here’s a student from Oxford that kens much better than you how to spae its fortune; he does it by the stars.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ said Mannering, entering into the simple humour of his landlord, ’I will calculate his nativity according to the rule of the “triplicities,” as recommended by Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Diocles, and Avicenna.  Or I will begin ab hora questionis, as Haly, Messahala, Ganwehis, and Guido Bonatus have recommended.’

One of Sampson’s great recommendations to the favour of Mr. Bertram was, that he never detected the most gross attempt at imposition, so that the Laird, whose humble efforts at jocularity were chiefly confined to what were then called bites and bams, since denominated hoaxes and quizzes, had the fairest possible subject of wit in the unsuspecting Dominie.  It is true, he never laughed, or joined in the laugh which his own simplicity afforded—­nay, it is said, he never laughed but once in his life, and on that memorable occasion his landlady miscarried, partly through surprise at the event itself, and partly from terror at the hideous grimaces which attended this unusual cachinnation.  The only effect which the discovery of such impositions produced upon this saturnine personage was, to extort an ejaculation of ‘Prodigious!’ or ‘Very facetious!’ pronounced syllabically, but without moving a muscle of his own countenance.

On the present occasion, he turned a gaunt and ghastly stare upon the youthful astrologer, and seemed to doubt if he had rightly understood his answer to his patron.

‘I am afraid, sir,’ said Mannering, turning towards him, ’you may be one of those unhappy persons who, their dim eyes being unable to penetrate the starry spheres, and to discern therein the decrees of heaven at a distance, have their hearts barred against conviction by prejudice and misprision.’

‘Truly,’ said Sampson, ’I opine with Sir Isaac Newton, Knight, and umwhile master of his Majesty’s mint, that the (pretended) science of astrology is altogether vain, frivolous, and unsatisfactory.’  And here he reposed his oracular jaws.