but he was glad to get the ale for all that; and presently we were set
down at a table in the front room of the inn, and both eating and
drinking with a good appetite.

Here it occurred to me that, as the landlord was a man of that county,
I might do well to make a friend of him. I offered him a share, as was
much the custom in those days; but he was far too great a man to sit
with such poor customers as Ransome and myself, and he was leaving the
room, when I called him back to ask if he knew Mr. Rankeillor.

"Hoot ay," says he, "and a very honest man. And O, by the by," says he,
"was it you that came in with Ebenezer?" And, when I had told him yes,
"Ye'll be no friend of his?" he asked, meaning, in the Scottish way,
that I would be no relative.

I told him no, none.

"I thought not," said he, "and yet ye have a kind of gliff[6] of Mr.
Alexander."

I said it seemed that Ebenezer was ill-seen in the country.

"Nae doubt," said the landlord. "He's a wicked auld man, and there's
many would like to see him girning in a tow:[7] Jennet Clouston and mony
mair that he has harried out of house and hame. And yet he was ance a
fine young fellow too. But that was before the sough[8] gaed abroad
about Mr. Alexander; that was like the death of him."

"And what was it?" I asked.

"Ou, just that he had killed him," said the landlord. "Did ye never hear
that?"

"And what would he kill him for?" said I.

"And what for, but just to get the place," said he.

"The place?" said I. "The Shaws?"

"Nae other place that I ken," said he.

"Ay, man?" said I. "Is that so? Was my--was Alexander the eldest son?"

"'Deed was he," said the landlord. "What else would he have killed him
for?"

And with that he went away, as he had been impatient to do from the
beginning.

Of course, I had guessed it a long while ago; but it is one thing to
guess, another to know; and I sat stunned with my good fortune, and
could scarce grow to believe that the same poor lad who had trudged in
the dust from Ettrick Forest not two days ago, was now one of the rich
of the earth, and had a house and broad lands, and might mount his horse
to-morrow. All these pleasant things, and a thousand others, crowded
into my mind, as I sat staring before me out of the inn window, and
paying no heed to what I saw; only I remember that my eye lighted on
Captain Hoseason down on the pier among his seamen and speaking with
some authority. And presently he came marching