ike trash as are down at the Well yonder."

"You are severe, Mrs. Dods," replied the guest. "No doubt Miss Clara's
conduct deserves all sort of freedom."

"I am saying naething against her conduct," said the dame; "and there's
nae ground to say onything that I ken of--But I wad hae like draw to
like, Maister Francie. I never quarrelled the ball that the gentry used
to hae at my bit house a gude wheen years bygane--when they came, the
auld folk in their coaches, wi' lang-tailed black horses, and a wheen
galliard gallants on their hunting horses, and mony a decent leddy
behind her ain goodman, and mony a bonny smirking lassie on her pownie,
and wha sae happy as they--And what for no? And then there was the
farmers' ball, wi' the tight lads of yeomen with the bran new blues and
the buckskins--These were decent meetings--but then they were a' ae
man's bairns that were at them, ilk ane kend ilk other--they danced
farmers wi' farmers' daughters, at the tane, and gentles wi' gentle
blood, at the t'other, unless maybe when some of the gentlemen of the
Killnakelty Club would gie me a round of the floor mysell, in the way of
daffing and fun, and me no able to flyte on them for laughing--I am sure
I never grudged these innocent pleasures, although it has cost me maybe
a week's redding up, before I got the better of the confusion."

"But, dame," said Tyrrel, "this ceremonial would be a little hard upon
strangers like myself, for how were we to find partners in these family
parties of yours?"

"Never you fash your thumb about that, Maister Francie," returned the
landlady, with a knowing wink.--"Every Jack will find a Jill, gang the
world as it may--and, at the warst o't, better hae some fashery in
finding a partner for the night, than get yoked with ane that you may
not be able to shake off the morn."

"And does that sometimes happen?" asked the stranger.

"Happen!--and is't amang the Well folk that ye mean?" exclaimed the
hostess. "Was it not the last season, as they ca't, no farther gane,
that young Sir Bingo Binks, the English lad wi' the red coat, that keeps
a mail-coach, and drives it himsell, gat cleekit with Miss Rachel
Bonnyrigg, the auld Leddy Loupengirth's lang-legged daughter--and they
danced sae lang thegither, that there was mair said than suld hae been
said about it--and the lad would fain hae louped back, but the auld
leddy held him to his tackle, and the Commissary Court and somebody else
made her Leddy Binks i