He sat down with a slight air of annoyance. "These fellows are wanting more meal," he said, "and one or two are pretty deep in my books already." "Do you, then, keep regular accounts with them?" "Of course. I give nothing for nothing. I wish to do them as much good as I can. They are a good deal like my old ryots, only the ryot was more supple and obsequious." "Where do your friends come from?" I asked. "From the village over there," pointing across the narrow blue loch. "Pretty Polly! Polly!" The parrot was climbing up and down the cage, taking hold of the wires with beak and claw as it did so. "I wish to know something of your villagers. The cotters on the hill-side seem comfortable enough, but I wish to know something of the black land and the lonely huts behind." "Oh," said he, laughing, "that is my penal settlement--I'll drive you over to-morrow." He then got up, tossed a stone into the shrubbery, after which Maida dashed, thrust his hands into his breeches' pocket for a moment, and marched into the house. [Sidenote: The Landlord's arrival.] Next morning we drove across to the village, and pretty enough it looked as we alighted. The big water-wheel of the mill whirred industrious music, flour flying about the door and windows. Two or three people were standing at the merchant's shop. At the smithy a horse was haltered, and within were brilliant showers of sparks and the merry clink of hammers. The sunshine made pure amber the pools of the tumbling burn, and in one of these a girl was rinsing linen, the light touching her hair into a richer colour. Our arrival at the inn created some little stir. The dusty miller came out, the smith came to the door rubbing down his apron with a horny palm, the girl stood upright by the burn-side shading her eyes with her hand, one of the men at the merchant's shop went within to tell the news, the labourers in the fields round about stopped work to stare. The machine was no sooner put to rights and the horses taken round to the stable than the mistress of the house complained that the roof was leaky, and she and the Landlord went in to inspect the same. Left alone for a little, I could observe that, seeing my friend had arrived, the people were resolved to make some use of him, and here and there I noticed them laying down their crooked spades, and coming down towards the inn. One old woman, with a white handkerchief tied round her head, sat down on a stone opposite, and when the Landlord appeared--the matter of the leaky roof having been arranged--she rose and dropped a courtesy. She had a complaint to make, a benefit to ask, a wrong to be redressed. I could not, of course, understand a word of the conversation, but curiously sharp and querulous was her voice, with a slight suspicion of the whine of the mendicant in it, and every now and then she would give a deep sigh, and smooth down her apron with both her hands. I suspect the old lady gained her