The person thus addressed was a tall man, with a red beard, revealing only about a quarter of a countenance, who stood smoking and leaning against the doorway of the "Murkley Arms." He looked up, but somewhat languidly, at the appeal, and said, "Ay, Duncan, is that you?" with the greatest composure without deranging himself. Thereupon Duncan jumped down, throwing the reins on the mare's neck, who was much subdued by her rapid progress, and besides had the habit of standing still before the door of a "public." "And hoo's a' wi' ye, and hoo's the fushing?" Duncan said, plunging into an immediate conversation with his friend, at which Grantley, first in consternation, afterwards in amusement, listened with only partial understanding, but a most comical sense of his own complete unimportance and the total want of interest in him of the new world into which he was thrown. He sat for about five minutes (as he thought) quietly surveying from that elevation the village street, the river in the distance, the homely sights and sounds of the evening. Cows were coming home from the riverside meadows, and wondering no doubt why night and milking-time were so long of coming; the children were still about in the road, the men in groups here and there, the women at the doors. They said to each other as a chance passenger went by, "It's a bonnie nicht," interrupting the quiet now and then by a scream at Jeanie or Jackey adjuring them to "come in to their beds." "They should be a' in their beds, thae bairns; but what can ye do when it's sae lang light?" the mothers said to each other. Young Lewis Grantley in the leisure and surprise of his youth, still fresh and pleased with everything novel he saw, was well enough occupied in contemplating all this, and in no hurry to assert his own consequence as a visitor. But by-and-by he got tired of his eminence and jumped down from the dog-cart; the sound disturbed the lively conversation at the inn door. "Lord, we've forgotten the gentleman," said Duncan. Long Adam took no notice of the gentleman, but he put his hand to his mouth and called "Jennit!" in a sort of soft bellow, thunderous and rolling into the air like a distant explosion. In a minute more quick steps came pattering along the brick-paved passage. "What's it noo?" said a brisk voice. "A gentleman. Losh me! what am I to do with a gentleman?--no a thing in the house, and the curtains aff a' the beds. I think ye're crackit, Duncan Davidson, to bring a gentleman to me." "He's crackit himself to want to come, but I have nae wyte o't," said Duncan. "Would you have had me tak' him to Luckie Todd's? They'll take him in, and welcome there."