now, any inkling about the matter, having never seen him or his
daughter between the een before, and not kenning them by headmark; so,
though we sympathized with him, as folks ought to do with a
fellow-creature in affliction, we thought it best to hold our tongues, to
see what might cast up better than he expected. So out he went stumping
at the other side, determined, he said, to find them out, though he
should follow them to the world's end, Johnny Groat's House, or something
to that effect.

Hardly was his back turned, and almost before he could cry Jack Robison,
in comes the birkie and the very young lady the old gentleman described,
arm-and-arm together, smoodging and laughing like daft. Dog on it! it
was a shameless piece of business. As true as death, before all the
crowd of folk, he put his arm round her waist, and called her his
sweetheart, and love, and dearie, and darling, and everything that is
fine. If they had been courting in a close together on a Friday night,
they could not have said more to one another, or gone greater lengths. I
thought such shame to be an eye-witness to sic ongoings, that I was
obliged at last to hold up my hat before my face, and look down; though,
for all that, the young lad, to be such a blackguard as his conduct
showed, was well enough faured, and had a good coat to his back with
double gilt buttons and fashionable lapells, to say little of a very
well-made pair of buckskins, a thought the worse of the wear to be sure,
but which, if they had been well cleaned, would have looked almost as
good as new. How they had come we never could learn, as we neither saw
chaise nor gig; but, from his having spurs on his boots, it is more than
likely that they had lighted at the back-door of the barn from a horse,
she riding on a pad behind him, maybe, with her hand round his waist.

The father looked to be a rich old bool, both from his manner of
speaking, and the rewards he seemed to offer for the apprehension of his
daughter; but to be sure, when so many of us were present that had an
equal right to the spuilzie, it would not be a great deal a thousand
pounds, when divided, still it was worth the looking after; so we just
bidit a wee.

Things were brought to a bearing, howsoever, sooner than either
themselves, I daresay, or anybody else present, seemed to have the least
glimpse of; for, just in the middle of their fine goings-on, the sound of
a coming foot was heard, and the lassie,