may be seeking a father to another wean for ony
thing I ken. If it warna that your father, auld David Deans, had been a
tenant on our land, I would cry up the men-folk, and hae ye dookit in the
burn for your impudence."

Jeanie had already turned her back, and was walking towards the door of
the court-yard, so that Mrs. Balchristie, to make her last threat
impressively audible to her, had raised her stentorian voice to its
utmost pitch. But, like many a general, she lost the engagement by
pressing her advantage too far.

The Laird had been disturbed in his morning slumbers by the tones of Mrs.
Balchristie's objurgation, sounds in themselves by no means uncommon, but
very remarkable, in respect to the early hour at which they were now
heard. He turned himself on the other side, however, in hopes the squall
would blow by, when, in the course of Mrs. Balchristie's second explosion
of wrath, the name of Deans distinctly struck the tympanum of his ear. As
he was, in some degree, aware of the small portion of benevolence with
which his housekeeper regarded the family at St. Leonard's, he instantly
conceived that some message from thence was the cause of this untimely
ire, and getting out of his bed, he slipt as speedily as possible into an
old brocaded night-gown, and some other necessary garments, clapped on
his head his father's gold-laced hat (for though he was seldom seen
without it, yet it is proper to contradict the popular report that he
slept in it, as Don Quixote did in his helmet), and opening the window of
his bedroom, beheld, to his great astonishment, the well-known figure of
Jeanie Deans herself retreating from his gate; while his housekeeper,
with arms a-kimbo, fist clenched and extended, body erect, and head
shaking with rage, sent after her a volley of Billingsgate oaths. His
choler rose in proportion to the surprise, and, perhaps, to the
disturbance of his repose. "Hark ye," he exclaimed from the window, "ye
auld limb of Satan--wha the deil gies you commission to guide an honest
man's daughter that gate?"

Mrs. Balchristie was completely caught in the manner. She was aware, from
the unusual warmth with which the Laird expressed himself, that he was
quite serious in this matter, and she knew, that with all his indolence
of nature, there were points on which he might be provoked, and that,
being provoked, he had in him something dangerous, which her wisdom
taught her to fear accordingly. She began, therefor