g the burden of our sins where they should be
laid,' said Thomas Trumbull, about to shut the door in the inquirer's
face.

'Do you know,' said Alan Fairford, 'the Laird of Redgauntlet?'

'Now Heaven defend me from treason and rebellion!' exclaimed Trumbull.
'Young gentleman, you are importunate. I live here among my own people,
and do not consort with Jacobites and mass-mongers.'

He seemed about to shut the door, but did NOT shut it, a circumstance
which did not escape Alan's notice.

'Mr. Redgauntlet is sometimes,' he said, 'called Herries of Birrenswork;
perhaps you may know him under that name.'

'Friend, you are uncivil,' answered Mr. Trumbull; 'honest men have
enough to do to keep one name undefiled. I ken nothing about those who
have two. Good even to you, friend.'

He was now about to slam the door in his visitor's face without
further ceremony, when Alan, who had observed symptoms that the name
of Redgauntlet did not seem altogether so indifferent to him as he
pretended, arrested his purpose by saying, in a low voice, 'At least you
can tell me what age the moon is?'

The old man started, as if from a trance, and before answering, surveyed
the querist with a keen penetrating glance, which seemed to say, 'Are
you really in possession of this key to my confidence, or do you speak
from mere accident?'

To this keen look of scrutiny, Fairford replied by a smile of
intelligence.

The iron muscles of the old man's face did not, however, relax, as he
dropped, in a careless manner, the countersign, 'Not light enough to
land a cargo.'

'Then plague of all Aberdeen Almanacks!'

'And plague of all fools that waste time,' said Thomas Trumbull, 'Could
you not have said as much at first? And standing wasting time, and
encouraging; lookers-on, in the open street too? Come in by--in by.'

He drew his visitor into the dark entrance of the house, and shut
the door carefully; then putting his head into an apartment which the
murmurs within announced to be filled with the family, he said aloud, 'A
work of necessity and mercy--Malachi, take the book--You will sing six
double verses of the hundred and nineteen-and you may lecture out of the
Lamentations. And, Malachi,'--this he said in an undertone,--'see you
give them a a creed of doctrine that will last them till I come back; or
else these inconsiderate lads will be out of the house, and away to the
publics, wasting their precious time, and, it may be, putting themse