!"

"Hout tout, man, it's but little ye ken about them," interrupted the
Captain. "Teil a ane o' them wad gie the savour of the hot venison pasty
which I smell" (turning his squab nose up in the air) "a' the way frae
the Lodge, for a' that Mr. Putler, or you either, can say to them."

David groaned; but judging he had to do with a Gallio, as he said, did
not think it worth his while to give battle. They followed the Captain to
the house, and arranged themselves with great ceremony round a
well-loaded supper-table. The only other circumstance of the evening
worthy to be recorded is, that Butler pronounced the blessing; that
Knockdunder found it too long, and David Deans censured it as too short,
from which the charitable reader may conclude it was exactly the proper
length.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIRST.

Now turn the Psalms of David ower,
And lilt wi' holy clangor;
Of double verse come gie us four,
And skirl up the Bangor.
Burns.

The next was the important day, when, according to the forms and ritual
of the Scottish Kirk, Reuben Butler was to be ordained minister of
Knocktarlitie, by the Presbytery of ------. And so eager were the whole
party, that all, excepting Mrs. Dutton, the destined Cowslip of Inverary,
were stirring at an early hour.

Their host, whose appetite was as quick and keen as his temper, was not
long in summoning them to a substantial breakfast, where there were at
least a dozen of different preparations of milk, plenty of cold meat,
scores boiled and roasted eggs, a huge cag of butter, half-a-firkin
herrings boiled and broiled, fresh and salt, and tea and coffee for them
that liked it, which, as their landlord assured them, with a nod and a
wink, pointing, at the same time, to a little cutter which seemed dodging
under the lee of the island, cost them little beside the fetching ashore.

"Is the contraband trade permitted here so openly?" said Butler. "I
should think it very unfavourable to the people's morals."

"The Duke, Mr. Putler, has gien nae orders concerning the putting of it
down," said the magistrate, and seemed to think that he had said all that
was necessary to justify his connivance. Butler was a man of prudence,
and aware that real good can only be obtained by remonstrance when
remonstrance is well-timed; so for the present he said nothing more on
the su