It is to be hoped he makes a good use of them; though, if he does, it will be for the first time in his life.' 'He has then been an irregular liver ?' insinuated I.
My father replied by that famous brocard with which he silences all unacceptable queries turning in the slightest degree upon the failings of our neighbours,--'If we mend our own faults, Alan, we shall all of us have enough to do, without sitting in judgement upon other folks.' Here I was again at fault; but rallying once more, I observed, he had the air of a man of high rank and family.
'He is well entitled,' said my father, 'representing Herries of Birrenswork; a branch of that great and once powerful family of Herries, the elder branch whereof merged in the house of Nithesdale at the death of Lord Robin the Philosopher, Anno Domini sixteen hundred and sixty-seven.' 'Has he still,' said I, 'his patrimonial estate of Birrenswork ?' 'No,' replied my father; 'so far back as his father's time, it was a mere designation--the property being forfeited by Herbert Herries following his kinsman the Earl of Derwentwater to the Preston affair in 1715.

But they keep up the designation, thinking, doubtless, that their claims may be revived in more favourable times for Jacobites and for popery; and folks who in no way partake of their fantastic capriccios do yet allow it to pass unchallenged, EX COMITATE, if not EX MISERICORDIA .-- But were he the Pope and the Pretender both, we must get some dinner ready for him, since he has thought fit to offer himself.

So hasten home, my lad, and tell Hannah, Cook Epps, and James Wilkinson, to do their best; and do thou look out a pint or two of Maxwell's best--it is in the fifth bin--there are the keys of the wine-cellar.

Do not leave them in the lock--you know poor James's failing, though he is an honest creature under all other temptations--and I have but two bottles of the old brandy left--we must keep it for medicine, Alan.' Away went I--made my preparations--the hour of dinner came, and so did Mr.Herries of Birrenswork.
If I had thy power of imagination and description, Darsie, I could make out a fine, dark, mysterious, Rembrandt-looking portrait of this same stranger, which should be as far superior to thy fisherman as a shirt of chain-mail is to a herring-net.

I can assure you there is some matter for description about him; but knowing my own imperfections, I can only say, I thought him eminently disagreeable and ill-bred .-- No, ILL-BRED is not the proper word on the contrary, he appeared to know the rules of good-breeding perfectly, and only to think that the rank of the company did not require that he should attend to them--a view of the matter infinitely more offensive than if his behaviour had been that of uneducated and proper rudeness.