es all the work."

"What is the meaning of this, Joseph?" said Mr. Galbraith, turning
from her to the butler, with the air of rebuke, which was almost
habitual to him, a good deal heightened.

"The meanin' o' what, sir?" returned Joseph, nowise abashed, for to
him his master was not the greatest man in the world, or even in the
highlands. "He's no a Galbraith," he used to say, when more than
commonly provoked with him.

"I ask you, Joseph," answered the laird, "what this--this outbreak
of superstition imports? You must be aware that nothing in the
world could annoy me more than that Miss Galbraith should learn
folly in her father's house. That staid servants, such as I had
supposed mine to be, should use their tongues as if their heads had
no more in them than so many bells hung in a steeple, is to me a
mortifying reflection."

"Tongues as weel's clappers was made to wag, sir; an, wag they wull,
sir, sae lang's the tow (string) hings oot at baith lugs," answered
Joseph. The forms of speech he employed were not unfrequently
obscure to his master, and in that obscurity lay more of Joseph's
impunity than he knew. "Forby (besides), sir," he went on, "gien
tongues didna wag, what w'y wad you, 'at has to set a' thing richt,
come to ken what was wrang?"

"That is not a bad remark, Joseph," replied the laird, with woolly
condescension. "Pray acquaint me with the whole matter."

"I hae naething till acquaint yer honour wi', sir, but the
ting-a-ling o' tongues," replied Joseph; "an' ye'll hae till
arreenge't like, till yer ain settisfaction."

Therewith he proceeded to report what he had heard reported, which
was in the main the truth, considerably exaggerated--that the work
of the house was done over night by invisible hands--and the work of
the stables, too; but that in the latter, cantrips were played as
well; that some of the men talked of leaving the place; and that Mr.
Duff's own horse, Snowball, was nearly out of his mind with fear.

The laird clenched his teeth, and for a whole minute said nothing.
Here were either his old enemies again, or some who had heard the
old story, and in their turn were beating the drum of consternation
in the ears of superstition.

"It is one of the men themselves," he said at last, with outward
frigidity. "Or some ill-designed neighbour," he added. "But I shall
soon be at the bottom of it. Go to the Mains at once, Joseph, and
ask young Fergus Duff to be so good as step o