“Naebody can tell that; but I have plenty of fairy tales,” said the old man. “Ye see, it was in the auld times, maybe twa hundred year ago, or mair siller, that the Laird of Allenders had a young daughter, and her name was--aye, Miss Rose, that’s my meal ark--it doesna haud muckle aboon a peck at a time; and here’s where I keep my bannocks, and I have a wee kettle and a pickle tea and sugar there; and for the greens I have just to gang down to the garden and cut them, nae leave asked, and my drap milk brought regular to the very door. Ye see I’m weel off, and I’m ready to own it and be thankful, instead of graneing for ever like some folk--for I’m real comfortable here.” “And have you no friends?” asked Rose. “Weel, there’s Mysie down there, milking the cow, and there’s her father, my sister’s son. Eh, to see the ill the warld and a family do to a man! for there’s that lad Geordie Paxton, no fifty year auld, and he’s a mair aged man than me--‘for such shall have sorrow in the flesh,’ the Apostle says, and never being married mysel, ye see, and keeping up nae troke wi’ far-off kin, that’s a’ the friends, except a cousin, here and there, that I hae.” “And does naebody ever come to see you?” asked Katie. “No a creature--wha should mind me, a silly auld man?” answered the Dragon, with a momentary pathos in his tone. “And I couldna be fashed wi’ strangers either, and you see I hae a’thing within mysel, milk and meal, board and bed, sae that I’m nae ways dependent on either fremd-folk or friends; but ye may speak for me if you like, Miss Rose, to Mr. Hairy for a book whiles. There’s grand, solid books yonder of the auld maister’s, and there’s ane or twa that I found out no lang syne that wadna do for the like of you--I wouldna consent to lead away the young wi’ them; but they do weel enough to divert an auld man that has experience of the world, and kens guid from evil; and I’ll promise faithful to burn every word o’ them when I’ve ta’en the divert mysel. Here’s ane, ye see. I wadna let you read it, and you a young lassie; but ye may look at its name.” And looking, Rose discovered in the charred bundle of leaves which lay on the old man’s hob, and lighted his fire, a torn “Vicar of Wakefield.” “Eh, I’ve read that!” said Violet, under her breath; and Violet looked on with horror as if at a human sacrifice. “Every morning, when I take a page for my light, I read it first,” said the Dragon, chuckling; “there’s that muckle diversion in’t; but it’s no for you--it’s no for the like of you.” CHAPTER IX. Neither a borrower nor a lender be, For borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry. HAMLET. “HARRY, my man, you must be canny with the siller,” said Uncle Sandy. “It’s a snare to the feet of many--and mind, this fortune brings such a change in your case, that there is a danger of you thinking it greater than it is.”