is is the very lad Tirl, that I raised a summons against before the
justices--him and another hempie--in your father's time, for shooting on
the Spring-well-head muirs."

"The devil you did, Mick!" replied the Lord of the Manor, also
aside;--"Well, I am obliged to you for giving me some reason for the ill
thoughts I had of him--I knew he was some trumpery scamp--I'll blow him,
by"----

"Whisht--stop--hush--haud your tongue, St. Ronan's,--keep a calm
sough--ye see, I intended the process, by your worthy father's desire,
before the Quarter Sessions--but I ken na--The auld sheriff-clerk stood
the lad's friend--and some of the justices thought it was but a mistake
of the marches, and sae we couldna get a judgment--and your father was
very ill of the gout, and I was feared to vex him, and so I was fain to
let the process sleep, for fear they had been assoilzied.--Sae ye had
better gang cautiously to wark, St. Ronan's, for though they were
summoned, they were not convict."

"Could you not take up the action again?" said Mr. Mowbray.

"Whew! it's been prescribed sax or seeven year syne. It is a great
shame, St. Ronan's, that the game laws, whilk are the very best
protection that is left to country gentlemen against the encroachment of
their inferiors, rin sae short a course of prescription--a poacher may
just jink ye back and forward like a flea in a blanket, (wi'
pardon)--hap ye out of ae county and into anither at their pleasure,
like pyots--and unless ye get your thum-nail on them in the very nick o'
time, ye may dine on a dish of prescription, and sup upon an
absolvitor."

"It is a shame indeed," said Mowbray, turning from his confident and
agent, and addressing himself to the company in general, yet not without
a peculiar look directed to Tyrrel.

"What is a shame, sir?" said Tyrrel, conceiving that the observation was
particularly addressed to him.

"That we should have so many poachers upon our muirs, sir," answered St.
Ronan's. "I sometimes regret having countenanced the Well here, when I
think how many guns it has brought on my property every season."

"Hout fie! hout awa, St. Ronan's!" said his Man of Law; "no countenance
the Waal? What would the country-side be without it, I would be glad to
ken? It's the greatest improvement that has been made on this country
since the year forty-five. Na, na, it's no the Waal that's to blame for
the poaching and delinquencies on the game. We maun to the Aultoun for
the h