e knocked at
the hall door, and after much perseverance and entreaty, was admitted
into the presence of the haughty earl. She curtsied low before him.

"Well, what want ye, my bonny lass?" said Lauderdale, eyeing her
significantly.

"May it please yer lordship," replied Margaret, "I am the wife o' yer
tenant, Thomas Hardie o' Tollishill; an' a guid tenant he has been to
yer lordship for twenty years and mair, as yer lordship maun weel ken."

"He has been my tenant for more than twenty years, say ye?" interrupted
Lauderdale; "and ye say ye are his wife: why, looking on thy bonny face,
I should say that the heather hasna bloomed twenty times on the knowes
o' Tollishill since thy mother bore thee. Yet ye say ye are his wife!
Beshrew me, but Thomas Hardie is a man o' taste. Arena ye his daughter?"

"No, my lord; his first, his only, an' his lawfu' wife--an' I would only
say, that to ye an' yer faither before ye, for mair than twenty years,
he has paid his rent regularly an' faithfully; but the seasons hae
visited us sairly, very sairly, for twa years successively, my lord, an'
the drift has destroyed, an' the rot rooted oot oor flocks, sae that we
are hardly able to haud up oor heads amang oor neebors, and to meet yer
lordship at yer rent-day is oot o' oor power; therefore hae I come to ye
to implore ye, that we may hae time to gather oor feet, an' to gie yer
lordship an' every man his due, when it is in oor power."

"Hear me, guidwife," rejoined the earl; "were I to listen to such
stories as yours, I might have every farmer's wife on my estates coming
whimpering and whinging, till I was left to shake a purse with naething
in't, and allowing others the benefit o' my lands. But it is not every
day that a face like yours comes in the shape o' sorrow before me; and,
for ae kiss o' your cherry mou', (and ye may take my compliments to your
auld man for his taste,) ye shall have a discharge for your half-year's
rent, and see if that may set your husband on his feet again."

"Na, yer lordship, na!" replied Margaret; "it would ill become ony woman
in my situation in life, an' especially a married ane, to be daffin with
sic as yer lordship. I am the wife o' Thomas Hardie, wha is a guid
guidman to me, an' I cam here this day to entreat ye to deal kindly wi'
him in the day o' his misfortune."

"Troth," replied Lauderdale--who could feel the force of virtue in
others, though he did not always practise it in his own person--"I hae