ly? It's a blessing you
have fallen in my hands! Suppose your father hindered by an accident,
what would become of you here, and you your lee-alone in a strange
place? The thought of the thing frightens me," I said.

"I will have lied to all of them," she replied. "I will have told them
all that I had plenty. I told _her_ too. I could not be lowering James
More to them."

I found out later on that she must have lowered him in the very dust,
for the lie was originally the father's not the daughter's, and she thus
obliged to persevere in it for the man's reputation. But at the time I
was ignorant of this, and the mere thought of her destitution and the
perils in which she must have fallen, had ruffled me almost beyond
reason.

"Well, well, well," said I, "you will have to learn more sense."

I left her mails for the moment in an inn upon the shore, where I got a
direction for Sprott's house in my new French, and we walked there--it
was some little way--beholding the place with wonder as we went. Indeed,
there was much for Scots folk to admire; canals and trees being
intermingled with the houses; the houses, each within itself, of a brave
red brick, the colour of a rose, with steps and benches of blue marble
at the cheek of every door, and the whole town so clean you might have
dined upon the causeway. Sprott was within, upon his ledgers, in a low
parlour, very neat and clean, and set out with china and pictures and a
globe of the earth in a brass frame. He was a big-chafted, ruddy, lusty
man, with a crooked hard look to him; and he made us not that much
civility as offer us a seat.

"Is James More Macgregor now in Helvoet, sir?" says I.

"I ken nobody by such a name," says he, impatient-like.

"Since you are so particular," says I, "I will amend my question, and
ask you where we are to find in Helvoet one James Drummond, _alias_
Macgregor, _alias_ James More, late tenant in Iveronachile?"

"Sir," says he, "he may be in Hell for what I ken, and for my part I
wish he was."

"The young lady is that gentleman's daughter, sir," said I, "before
whom, I think you will agree with me, it is not very becoming to discuss
his character."

"I have nothing to make either with him, or her, or you!" cries he in
his gross voice.

"Under your favour, Mr. Sprott," said I, "this young lady is come from
Scotland seeking him, and by whatever mistake, was given the name of
your house for a direction. An error it seems to have been