who had sat around the
table--Adair, his family, and the stranger--had risen to their feet, the
latter, smiling through his natural gravity, asked his host if he would be
so good as give him a private interview with him. To this Mr Adair,
although not a little surprised at the request, consented, and led the way
into a small back-parlour that opened from the room in which they had
breakfasted.

"Mr Adair," said the stranger, on their entering this apartment, and having
previously secured the door, "I am greatly indebted to you for the kindness
and hospitality you have shewn me."

"No the least, sir--no the least," replied the farmer, with a decree of
respect in his manner with which his guest's air and bearing had
unconsciously inspired him, he did not know how or wherefore--"No the
least. I am aye glad to shew civility to them that seek the shelter o' my
rufe; it's just a pleasure to me. Ye're not only heartily welcome, sir, to
a' ye hae gotten, but to a week o't, an' ye like. I dinna think that I wad
be the first to weary o't."

"Have you any objection to try?" said the stranger, with a gentle smile.

"None whatever," replied the hospitable yeoman.

"Well, Mr Adair," said the stranger, with more gravity of manner, "to
convert jest into earnest, I have a proposal to make to you. I have been
for some time looking out for such a quiet retirement as this is, and a
family as respectable and agreeable as yours seems to me to be. Now, having
found both of these things to my mind here, I will, if you have no
objection, become a boarder with you, Mr Adair, paying you a hundred
guineas a-year; and here," he said, drawing out a well-filled purse, and
emptying its contents on the table--"here are fifty guineas in advance."
And he told off from the heap that lay on the table, the sum he named, and
thrust it towards his astonished host. "And let me add," went on the
mysterious stranger, "that, if you agree to my proposal, and continue to
put up as well together as I expect we shall, I will not limit my payment
to the sum I have mentioned. What say you to this, Mr Adair?"

To _this_ Mr Adair could say nothing for some time. Not a word. He was lost
in perplexity and amazement--a state of mental difficulty and
embarrassment, which he made manifest by scratching his head, and looking,
with a bewildered sort of smile, alternately at the gold and its late
owner--first at the one, then at the other. At length--

"Well," he said, s