ady. "Praise
God, and so can I! I was fool enough to take charge of this rogue's
daughter: a fine charge I have gotten; but it's mine, and I'll carry it
the way I want to. Do ye mean to tell me, Mr. Balfour of Shaws, that you
would marry James More's daughter, and him hanged? Well, then, where
there's no possible marriage there shall be no manner of carryings on,
and take that for said. Lasses are bruckle things," she added, with a
nod; "and though ye would never think it by my wrunkled chafts, I was a
lassie mysel', and a bonny one."

"Lady Allardyce," said I, "for that I suppose to be your name, you seem
to do the two sides of the talking, which is a very poor manner to come
to an agreement. You give me rather a home thrust when you ask if I
would marry, at the gallows' foot, a young lady whom I have seen but the
once. I have told you already I would never be so untenty as to commit
myself. And yet I'll go some way with you. If I continue to like the
lass as well as I have reason to expect, it will be something more than
her father, or the gallows either, that keeps the two of us apart. As
for my family, I found it by the wayside like a lost bawbee! I owe less
than nothing to my uncle; and if ever I marry, it will be to please one
person: that's myself."

"I have heard this kind of talk before ye were born," said Mrs. Ogilvy,
"which is perhaps the reason that I think of it so little. There's much
to be considered. This James More is a kinsman of mine, to my shame be
it spoken. But the better the family, the mair men hanged or heided,
that's always been poor Scotland's story. And if it was just the
hanging! For my part, I think I would be best pleased with James upon
the gallows, which would be at least an end to him. Catrine's a good
lass enough, and a good-hearted, and lets herself be deaved all day with
a runt of an auld wife like me. But, ye see, there's the weak bit. She's
daft about that long, false, fleeching beggar of a father of hers, and
red-mad about the Gregara, and proscribed names, and King James, and a
wheen blethers. And you might think ye could guide her, ye would find
yourself sore mista'en. Ye say ye've seen her but the once..."

"Spoke with her but the once, I should have said," I interrupted. "I saw
her again this morning from a window at Prestongrange's."

This I daresay I put in because it sounded well; but I was properly paid
for my ostentation on the return.

"What's this of it?" cries the