"Away with you!" cried the other, unheeding. "You are a plague to the neighbourhood. I will have you put in Montrose jail! To-morrow, I promise you, you will find yourself where you cannot make gentlemen's houses into pandemoniums with your noise." "A'd like Brechin better," rejoined the beggar; "it's couthier in there." Balnillo was a humane man, and he prided himself, as all the world knew, on some improvements he had suggested in the Montrose prison. He was speechless. "Ay," continued Wattie, "a'm thinkin' you've sent mony a better man than mysel' to the tolbooth. But, dod! a'm no mindin' that. A'm asking ye, _whaur's the painter-lad?_" One of Balnillo's fatal qualities was his power of turning in mid-career of wrath or eloquence to daily with side-issues. He swallowed the fury rising to his lips. "What! Mr. Flemington?" he stammered. "What do you want of Mr. Flemington?" "Is yon what they ca' him? Well, a'm no seekin' onything o' him. It's him that's seekin' me." Astonishment put everything else out of Balnillo's mind. He glared at the intruder, his lips pursed, his fingers working. "He tell't me to come in-by to the muckle hoose and speer for him," said the other. "There was a sang he was needin'. He was seekin' to lairn it, for he liket it fine, an' he tell't me to come awa' to the hoose and lairn him. Dod! maybe he's forgotten. Callants like him's whiles sweer to mind what they say, but auld stocks like you an' me's got mair sense." "I do not believe a word of it," protested Balnillo. "Hoots! ye'll hae to try, or the puir lad 'll no get his sang," exclaimed Skirling Wattie, smiling broadly. "Just you cry on him to come down the stair, an' we'll awa' ahint the back o' yon wa', an' a'll lairn him the music! It's this way." He unscrewed the chanter and blew a few piercing notes. The sound flew into the judge's face like the impact of a shower of pebbles. He clapped his hands to his ears. "I tell you Mr. Flemington is not here!" he bawled, raising his voice above the din. "He is gone. He is at Ardguys by this time." "Man, is yon true? Ye're no leein'?" exclaimed Wattie, dropping his weapon. "Is yon the way to speak to his lordship?" said the deep voice of Andrew Robieson, who had come up silently, his arms full of wood, behind the beggar's cart. "Turn this vagabond away!" exclaimed Balnillo, almost beside himself. "Send for the men; bring a horsewhip from the stable! Impudent rogue! Go, Robieson--quick, man!" But Wattie's switch was in his hand, and the dogs were already turning; before the elder had time to reach the stables, he had passed out under the clock and was disappearing between the trees of the avenue. He had learned what he wished to know, and the farther side of Brechin would be the best place for him for the next few days. He reflected that fortune had favoured him in keeping Captain Logie out of the way. There would have been no parleying with Captain Logie. BOOK II CHAPTER X ADRIFT