nd 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 was aye scored up, and unless the dignity of the family should
actually require it, it would be a sin to distress a widow woman.
None was so able--but, on the other hand, none was likely to be less
willing--to stand his friend upon the present occasion, than Gibbie
Girder, the man of tubs and barrels already mentioned, who had headed
the insurrection in the matter of the egg and butter subsidy. "But
a' comes o' taking folk on the right side, I trow," quoted Caleb to
himself; "and I had ance the ill hap to say he was but a Johnny New-come
in our town, and the carle bore the family an ill-will ever since.
But he married a bonny young quean, Jean Lightbody, auld Lightbody's
daughter, him that was in the steading of Loup-the-Dyke; and auld
Lightbody was married himsell to Marion, that was about my lady in
the family forty years syne. I hae had mony a day's daffing wi' Jean's
mither, and they say she bides on wi' them. The carle has Jacobuses and
Georgiuses baith, an ane could get at them; and sure I am, it's doing
him an honour him or his never deserved at our hand, the ungracious
sumph; and if he loses by us a'thegither, he is e'en cheap o't: he can
spare it brawly." Shaking off irresolu