s it has done full many a one of
thine own! Thou hast so happy a knack of doing the most foolish things
in the wisest manner, that thou mightst pass thy extravagances for
rational actions, even in the eyes of Prudence herself.

From the direction which my guide observed, I began to suspect that the
dell at Brokenburn was our probable destination; and it became important
to me to consider whether I could, with propriety, or even perfect
safety, intrude myself again upon the hospitality of my former host. I
therefore asked Willie whether we were bound for the laird's, as folk
called him.

'Do ye ken the laird?' said Willie, interrupting a sonata of Corelli, of
which he had whistled several bars with great precision.

'I know the laird a little,' said I; 'and therefore I was doubting
whether I ought to go to his town in disguise.'

'I should doubt, not a little only, but a great deal, before I took ye
there, my chap,' said Wandering Willie; 'for I am thinking it wad be
worth little less than broken banes baith to you and me. Na, na,
chap, we are no ganging to the laird's, but to a blithe birling at the
Brokenburn-foot, where there will be mony a braw lad and lass; and
maybe there may be some of the laird's folks, for he never comes to sic
splores himsell. He is all for fowling-piece and salmon-spear, now that
pike and musket are out of the question.'

'He has been at soldier, then?' said I.

'I'se warrant him a soger,' answered Willie; 'but take my advice, and
speer as little about him as he does about you. Best to let sleeping
dogs lie. Better say naething about the laird, my man, and tell me
instead, what sort of a chap ye are that are sae ready to cleik in with
an auld gaberlunzie fiddler? Maggie says ye're gentle, but a shilling
maks a' the difference that Maggie kens between a gentle and a semple,
and your crowns wad mak ye a prince of the blood in her een. But I am
ane that ken full weel that ye may wear good claithes, and have a saft
hand, and yet that may come of idleness as weel as gentrice.'

I told him my name, with the same addition I had formerly given to
Mr. Joshua Geddes; that I was a law-student, tired of my studies, and
rambling about for exercise and amusement.

'And are ye in the wont of drawing up wi' a' the gangrel bodies that
ye meet on the high-road, or find cowering in a sand-bunker upon the
links?' demanded Willie.

'Oh, no; only with honest folks like yourself, Willie,' was my reply.