"Ah, lad! honest Mr.Bindloose brought you neatly off there--Na, it's no that honest man, but his son John Mowbray--the t'other has slept down-by in Saint Ronan's Kirk for these six or seven years." "Did he leave," asked Tyrrel, with something of a faltering voice, "no other child than the present Laird ?" "No other son," said Meg; "and there's e'en eneugh, unless he could have left a better ane." "He died then," said Tyrrel, "excepting this son, without children ?" "By your leave, no," said Meg; "there is the lassie Miss Clara, that keeps house for the Laird, if it can be ca'd keeping house, for he is almost aye down at the Well yonder--so a sma' kitchen serves them at the Shaws." "Miss Clara will have but a dull time of it there during her brother's absence ?" said the stranger.
"Out no!--he has her aften jinketing about, and back and forward, wi' a' the fine flichtering fools that come yonder; and clapping palms wi' them, and linking at their dances and daffings.

I wuss nae ill come o't, but it's a shame her father's daughter should keep company wi' a' that scauff and raff of physic-students, and writers' prentices, and bagmen, and siclike 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 in spite of Sir Bingo's heart--and he has never daured take her to his friends in England, but they have just wintered and summered it at the Well ever since--and that is what the Well is good for!" "And does Clara,--I mean does Miss Mowbray, keep company with such women as these ?" said Tyrrel, with a tone of interest which he checked as he proceeded with the question.
"What can she do, puir thing ?" said the dame.