"I'm real glad to see it's nae waur," said Janet. "There's been ane here frae Kilmorley keen, keen to see ye. It was just the writer's clerk, and that gied us a fright; and he didna seem that sure about your name, and he said he had instructions just to bide and no to leave till he had seen ye. But I sent him away with a flea in his lug," said Janet. "I said you were just real respectable, as we've found you, sir, and one of the Murrays, kent folk, and taken a hantle notice of by the Murkley ladies, and how daured he come here to set your friends against ye? But for a' that I got a terrible fright, Mr. Murray. I thought maybe ye had got wit o' his coming, and had just slippit away, and we would never have heard tell of ye again." "Why should I slip away?" cried Lewis, astonished, his conviction of innocence being too strong to permit him to entertain at the moment any alarm as to the consequences that might follow if he were found to have presented himself under a name which was not his own. Janet gave him a confused, repentant, yet penetrating look. "Deed, I canna tell," she said, somewhat abashed; "but how was I to ken that there mightna be reasons, and the man so awfu' curious about you, and him the writer's clerk? Gentlemen are whiles overtaken, just the same as poor folk. It might have been siller, or it might have been----But, dear bless me, what is the use of speakin', when here ye are, just your ain sel', and no put aboot at a'; and the dinner's spoilt, but nae mair harm done." "My good Mrs. Janet," said Lewis, "I am much obliged to you, but you need not entertain any fears about me. I am not afraid of any writer's clerk. What is a writer, by the way?" he said, smiling, pausing as he was about to enter. She gazed at him with round eyes of amazement. "What is a writer? Well, I always said you were an innocent young man--I was aye sure there would be nothing in it--but you must ken very little indeed, sir, if you have never come across a writer. He's just a--well, maybe sometimes a terror to evil-doers, I would not say--but a great fyke and trouble mony a time to them that do well. He is one that will gather in the siller that's owin' ye, that ye canna get yoursel', and pretend it's a' for your gude, syne take his percentage and his profit, till there's more of it gangs into his pocket than yours. He is one that----" "I see--a lawyer of some sort. You thought I was perhaps running away from my creditors," Lewis said, with a laugh. Janet gave him a guilty glance. "Mony a grand gentleman has done that, and lived to pay them a' to the last farden, and never been a preen the waur." Lewis laughed till all the attendant children, who had been looking on, waiting for the penny promised them for intimating his approach, laughed too in sympathy. "I owe you more than I owe anybody else," he said; "but we'll talk of that after dinner, for I'm famishing now." CHAPTER XV.