ices were fast
at their desks--turned the key upon them, as if it were in a fit of
absence, and then returned, not a little curious to know what could be
the matter with his old friend; and leaving off all further attempts to
put cases, quietly drew his chair near hers, and awaited her own time to
make her communication.

"Mr. Bindloose," said she, "I am no sure that you may mind, about six or
seven years ago, that there were twa daft English callants, lodgers of
mine, that had some trouble from auld St. Ronan's about shooting on the
Springwell-head muirs."

"I mind it as weel as yesterday, Mistress," said the Clerk; "by the same
token you gave me a note for my trouble, (which wasna worth speaking
about,) and bade me no bring in a bill against the puir bairns--ye had
aye a kind heart, Mrs. Dods."

"Maybe, and maybe no, Mr. Bindloose--that is just as I find folk.--But
concerning these lads, they baith left the country, and, as I think, in
some ill blude wi' ane another, and now the auldest and the doucest of
the twa came back again about a fortnight sin' syne, and has been my
guest ever since."

"Aweel, and I trust he is not at his auld tricks again, goodwife?"
answered the Clerk. "I havena sae muckle to say either wi' the new
Sheriff or the Bench of Justices as I used to hae, Mrs. Dods--and the
Procurator-fiscal is very severe on poaching, being borne out by the new
Association--few of our auld friends of the Killnakelty are able to come
to the sessions now, Mrs. Dods."

"The waur for the country, Mr. Bindloose," replied the old lady--"they
were decent, considerate men, that didna plague a puir herd callant
muckle about a moorfowl or a mawkin, unless he turned common fowler--Sir
Robert Ringhorse used to say, the herd lads shot as mony gleds and pyots
as they did game.--But new lords new laws--naething but fine and
imprisonment, and the game no a feather the plentier. If I wad hae a
brace or twa of birds in the house, as every body looks for them after
the twelfth--I ken what they are like to cost me--And what for no?--risk
maun be paid for.--There is John Pirner himsell, that has keepit the
muir-side thirty year in spite of a' the lairds in the country, shoots,
he tells me, now-a-days, as if he felt a rape about his neck."

"It wasna about ony game business, then, that you wanted advice?" said
Bindloose, who, though somewhat of a digresser himself, made little
allowance for the excursions of others from the subje