as the parson would say--half the country once belonged to
my ancestors, and now the last furrows of it seem to be flying."

"Fleeing!" said the writer, "they are barking and fleeing baith.--This
Shaws-Castle here, I'se warrant it flee up the chimney after the rest,
were it not weel fastened down with your grandfather's tailzie."

"Damn the tailzie!" said Mowbray; "if they had meant to keep up their
estate, they should have entailed it when it was worth keeping: to tie a
man down to such an insignificant thing as St. Ronan's, is like
tethering a horse on six roods of a Highland moor."

"Ye have broke weel in on the mailing by your feus down at the Well,"
said Meiklewham, "and raxed ower the tether maybe a wee bit farther than
ye had ony right to do."

"It was by your advice, was it not?" said the Laird.

"I'se ne'er deny it, St. Ronan's," answered the writer; "but I am such a
gude-natured guse, that I just set about pleasing you as an auld wife
pleases a bairn."

"Ay," said the man of pleasure, "when she reaches it a knife to cut its
own fingers with.--These acres would have been safe enough, if it had
not been for your d----d advice."

"And yet you were grumbling e'en now," said the man of business, "that
you have not the power to gar the whole estate flee like a wild-duck
across a bog? Troth, you need care little about it; for if you have
incurred an irritancy--and sae thinks Mr. Wisebehind, the advocate, upon
an A. B. memorial that I laid before him--your sister, or your sister's
goodman, if she should take the fancy to marry, might bring a
declarator, and evict St. Ronan's frae ye in the course of twa or three
sessions."

"My sister will never marry," said John Mowbray.

"That's easily said," replied the writer; "but as broken a ship's come
to land. If ony body kend o' the chance she has o' the estate, there's
mony a weel-doing man would think little of the bee in her bonnet."

"Harkye, Mr. Meiklewham," said the Laird, "I will be obliged to you if
you will speak of Miss Mowbray with the respect due to her father's
daughter, and my sister."

"Nae offence, St. Ronan's, nae offence," answered the man of law; "but
ilka man maun speak sae as to be understood,--that is, when he speaks
about business. Ye ken yoursell, that Miss Clara is no just like other
folk; and were I you--it's my duty to speak plain--I wad e'en gie in a
bit scroll of a petition to the Lords, to be appointed Curator Bonis, in
respect of h