He read the note scrupulously through like a chapter in his Bible.
"H'm," says he, "ye come a wee thing ahint-hand, Mr.Balfour.The bird's flaen, we hae letten her out." "Miss Drummond is set free ?" I cried.
"Achy!" said he.

"What would we keep her for, ye ken?
To hae made a steer about the bairn would hae pleased naebody." "And where'll she be now ?" says I.
"Gude kens!" says Doig, with a shrug.
"She'll have gone home to Lady Allardyce, I'm thinking," said I.
"That'll be it," said he.
"Then I'll gang there straight," says I.
"But ye'll be for a bite or ye go ?" said he.
"Neither bite nor sup," said I."I had a good waucht of milk in by Ratho." "Aweel, aweel," says Doig.

"But ye'll can leave your horse here and your bags, for it seems we're to have your up-put." "Na, na," said I."Tamson's mear[17] would never be the thing for me, this day of all days." Doig speaking somewhat broad, I had been led by imitation into an accent much more countrified than I was usually careful to affect, a good deal broader indeed than I have written it down; and I was the more ashamed when another voice joined in behind me with a scrap of a ballad: "Gae saddle me the bonny black, Gae saddle sune and mak' him ready, For I will down the Gatehope-slack, And a' to see my bonny leddy." The young lady, when I turned to her, stood in a morning gown, and her hands muffled in the same, as if to hold me at a distance.

Yet I could not but think there was kindness in the eye with which she saw me.
"My best respects to you, Mistress Grant," said I bowing.
"The like to yourself, Mr.David," she replied, with a deep courtesy, "And I beg to remind you of an old musty saw, that meat and mass never hindered man.

The mass I cannot afford you, for we are all good Protestants.