At length there sounded the shuffling of feet and the opening and closing of a door. A tap, and the door of their own room opened; and entered the beadle, Joseph Smiley, a little ferrety-looking man with sharp restless eyes, that seemed as though they would squint in their alert impatience to look at everything at once. His dress was a rusty black coat, like the old one of an undertaker's man, and a soiled white wisp of neckcloth. He took off with both hands a limp and sodden hat, streaming with moisture, and deposited it under the table, with a sort of deprecatory bow to Mary, as who should say, 'It is not strong enough to be treated in the usual way, let us lay it down tenderly.' Recovering, he turned to the door, and with an encouraging 'Come in, boy,' introduced a tall over-grown lad of seventeen, dressed in a fisherman's oilskin suit, from which the rain trickled in copious streams. 'I wuss ye gude e'en, mem an' sir,' said Joseph 'Though it's faar frae what I wad ca' a gude e'en mysel', an' deed an' it's juist a most terrible nicht, though nae doubt them 'at sent it kens best.--Ay, Sir! It was juist the powerfu' ca' o' duty 'at garred me lay by the drap parrich an' steer frae the ingle neuk this nicht. Here's a laddie come a' the gate frae Inverlyon, e'y tap o' the coach to fesh ye back wi' him to see his granny 'ats lyin' near hand her end.' 'But Inverlyon is fen miles off, and in another parish,' the minister was here able to interrupt, a matter not always to be obtained when Joseph held forth, for he loved the continuous sound of his own voice above every other noise. 'And why did they not get Mr. Watson, the minister of Inverlyon?' put in Mary; 'I am sure Mr. Watson would have gone at once, and he is so good and so kind a man.' 'Na, na, mem! Naebody 'at kens my granny wad ventur to bring Mester Watson in ower by her!' cried the fisher lad, casting aside his bashfulness, and steadying himself on the tall limbs on which he had been swaying to and fro. 'He bed in, whan a' the gude folk cam out, an' sae she'll hae nane o' him!' 'But why should you want to take Mr. Brown all that distance to-night? and a night like this? Has your grandmother some dreadful secret on her mind? And would not a writer be the best person to get?' 'Na, mem! na! There's nothing like that! My Granny's a godly auld wife, tho' maybe she's gye fraxious whiles, an' mony's the sair paipin' she's gi'en me; gin there was ocht to confess she kens the road to the Throne better nor maist. But ye see there's a maggit gotten intil her heid, an' she says she beut to testifee afore she gangs hence.'