, I could
hear the noise of a window gently thrust up, and knew that my uncle had
come to his observatory. By what light there was he would see Alan
standing, like a dark shadow, on the steps; the three witnesses were
hidden quite out of his view; so that there was nothing to alarm an
honest man in his own house. For all that, he studied his visitor a
while in silence, and when he spoke his voice had a quaver of misgiving.

"What's this?" says he. "This is nae kind of time of night for decent
folk; and I hae nae trokings[34] wi' night-hawks. What brings ye here? I
have a blunderbush."

"Is that yoursel', Mr. Balfour?" returned Alan, stepping back and
looking up into the darkness. "Have a care of that blunderbuss; they're
nasty things to burst."

"What brings ye here? and whae are ye?" says my uncle angrily.

"I have no manner of inclination to rowt out my name to the
countryside," said Alan; "but what brings me here is another story,
being more of your affairs than mine; and if ye're sure it's what ye
would like, I'll set it to a tune and sing it to you."

"And what is't?" asked my uncle.

"David," says Alan.

"What was that?" cried my uncle, in a mighty changed voice.

"Shall I give ye the rest of the name, then?" said Alan.

There was a pause; and then, "I'm thinking I'll better let ye in," says
my uncle doubtfully.

"I daresay that," said Alan; "but the point is, Would I go? Now I will
tell you what I am thinking. I am thinking that it is here, upon this
doorstep, that we must confer upon this business; and it shall be here
or nowhere at all whatever; for I would have you to understand that I am
as stiffnecked as yoursel', and a gentleman of better family."

This change of note disconcerted Ebenezer; he was a little while
digesting it, and then says he, "Weel, weel, what must be must," and
shut the window. But it took him a long time to get downstairs, and a
still longer to undo the fastenings, repenting (I daresay) and taken
with fresh claps of fear at every second step and every bolt and bar. At
last, however, we heard the creak of the hinges, and it seems my uncle
slipped gingerly out and (seeing that Alan had stepped back a pace or
two) sate him down on the top doorstep with the blunderbuss ready in his
hands.

"And now," says he, "mind I have my blunderbush, and if ye take a step
nearer ye're as good as deid."

"And a very civil speech," says Alan, "to be sure."

"Na," says my uncle, "but this