Ony o' your banded debtors failed, or like to fail?
What then! cheer ye up--you can afford a little loss, and it canna be ony great matter, or I would doubtless have heard of it." "In troth, but it _is_ a loss, Mr.Bindloose; and what say ye to the loss of a friend ?" This was a possibility which had never entered the lawyer's long list of calamities, and he was at some loss to conceive what the old lady could possibly mean by so sentimental a prolusion.

But just as he began to come out with his "Ay, ay, we are all mortal, _Vita incerta, mors certissima!_" and two or three more pithy reflections, which he was in the habit of uttering after funerals, when the will of the deceased was about to be opened,--just then Mrs.Dods was pleased to become the expounder of her own oracle.
"I see how it is, Mr.Bindloose," she said; "I maun tell my ain ailment, for you are no likely to guess it; and so, if ye will shut the door, and see that nane of your giggling callants are listening in the passage, I will e'en tell you how things stand with me." Mr.Bindloose hastily arose to obey her commands, gave a cautionary glance into the Bank-office, and saw that his idle apprentices 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 subject in hand.
"Indeed is it no, Mr.Bindloose," said Meg; "but it is e'en about this unhappy callant that I spoke to you about .-- Ye maun ken I have cleiket a particular fancy to this lad, Francis Tirl--a fancy that whiles surprises my very sell, Mr.Bindloose, only that there is nae sin in it." "None--none in the world, Mrs.Dods," said the lawyer, thinking at the same time within his own mind, "Oho! the mist begins to clear up--the young poacher has hit the mark, I see--winged the old barren grey hen!--ay, ay,--a marriage-contract, no doubt--but I maun gie her line .-- Ye are a wise woman, Mrs.Dods," he continued aloud, "and can doubtless consider the chances and the changes of human affairs." "But I could never have considered what has befallen this puir lad, Mr.
Bindloose," said Mrs.Dods, "through the malice of wicked men .-- He lived, then, at the Cleikum, as I tell you, for mair than a fortnight, as quiet as a lamb on a lea-rig--a decenter lad never came within my door--ate and drank eneugh for the gude of the house, and nae mair than was for his ain gude, whether of body or soul--cleared his bills ilka Saturday at e'en, as regularly as Saturday came round." "An admirable customer, no doubt, Mrs.Dods," said the lawyer.
"Never was the like of him for that matter," answered the honest dame.
"But to see the malice of men!--some of thae landloupers and gill-flirts down at the filthy puddle yonder, that they ca' the Waal, had heard of this puir lad, and the bits of pictures that he made fashion of drawing, and they maun cuitle him awa doun to the bottle, where mony a bonny story they had clecked, Mr.Bindloose, baith of Mr.Tirl and of mysell." "A Commissary Court business," said the writer, going off again upon a false scent.

"I shall trim their jackets for them, Mrs.Dods, if you can but bring tight evidence of the facts--I will soon bring them to fine and palinode--I will make them repent meddling with your good name." "My gude name! What the sorrow is the matter wi' my name, Mr.
Bindloose ?" said the irritable client.