you
are harbouring in or about this house a young woman calling herself Irma
Sobieski Maitland, and a child of the male sex whom the aforesaid Irma
Sobieski affirms to be the rightful owner of this estate--in fact, Sir
Louis Maitland. Now, my firm have been long without direct news of the
family whom they represent. Our intelligence of late years has come from
their titular and legal guardian, Mr. Lalor Maitland, Governor of the
district of the Upper Meuse in the Brabants. Now we have recently heard
from this gentleman that his wards--two children bearing a certain
resemblance to those whom, we are informed, you have been
harbouring----"

My grandmother's temper, always uncertain with adults with whom she had
no sympathy, had been gradually rising at each repetition of an
offending word.

"Harbouring," she cried, "harbouring--let me hear that word come out o'
your impident mouth again, ye upsettin' body wi' the black bag, and I'll
gie ye the weight o' my hand against the side o' your face. Let me tell
you that in the house of Heathknowes we harbour neither burrowing rats
nor creepin' foumarts, nor any manner of unclean beasts--and as for a
lawvier, if lawvier ye be, ye are the first o' your breed to enter here,
and if my sons hear ye talkin' o' harbourin'--certes, ye stand a chance
to gang oot the door wi' your feet foremost!"

"My good woman," said the lawyer, "I was but using an ordinary word, in
perfect ignorance of any----"

"Come na, nane o' that crooked talk! Mary Lyon is nae bit silly Jenny
Wren to be whistled off the waa' wi' ony siccan talk. Dinna tell me that
a lawvier body doesna ken what 'harbouring rogues and vagabonds'
means--the innocent lamb that he is--and him reading the _Courier_ every
Wednesday!"

"But," said the solicitor, with more persistent firmness than his
emaciated body and timorous manner would have led one to expect, "the
children are here, and it is my duty to warn you that in withholding
them from their natural guardian you are defying the law. I come to
require that the children be given up to me at once, that I may put them
under their proper tutelage."

"Here, William," my grandmother called out, recognizing the footsteps
of her husband approaching, "gae cry the lads and lock the doors!
There's a body here that will need some guid broad Scots weared on him."

But the lawyer was not yet frightened. As it appeared, he had only known
the safe plainstones of Dumfries--so at least