"Oh!" said Burnside, who had caught the intelligent wink of the eye which Allargue had secretly conveyed to him, whilst going through this pompous introduction, and who had heard enough of Inchrory to enable him to guess at the case and the character of the animal he had to deal with, as well as to pick up his cue as to the proper way in which he should treat him. "Oh, that is altogether another affair! Had I only known the person in whose company I had the good fortune to be, I should not have presumed to have fired a shot before him. But if I have said any thing amiss, I am sure Inchrory will have the magnanimity to forgive me, seeing that I have been already sufficiently punished by the exhibition of bad gunning which I have unwittingly ventured to make in presence of him, who is by all acknowledged to be the best marksman in Scotland." "Sir," said Inchrory, rising full a couple of inches higher in his brogues, and coming forward to Burnside with extended palm, and with a manner full of dignified condescension. "You are a gentleman of the first water! I beg you will forget and forgive any expression which in my ignorance I may have let fall, that may by chance have given you offence." "Sir, I am proud to shake hands with you," said Burnside, advancing to give him a cordial squeeze. "Sir," said Inchrory with a proud air, but at the same time shaking him heartily by the hand, "any friend of my friend the Earl of Fife, is my friend. Henceforth, sir, I am your sworn friend." I daresay, gentlemen, I have given you enough of Inchrory to make you sufficiently well acquainted with his character. But I have yet one more anecdote of him, which I think brings it out more than all the others. His wife, Ealsach, was one morning occupied in tending the cattle at the shieling of Altanarroch. Lonely as you already know this place of Inchrory to be, its loneliness was nothing when compared to that of the shieling of Altanarroch, where even the cattle themselves could only exist for a month or two during the finest part of the year. Now, it happened that Ealsach, being in the family way, became extremely anxious and unhappy as her time of confinement approached, and her anxiety went on increasing daily, till at last she began to think it very expedient to go home to Inchrory. The distance was considerable, and the way rough enough in all conscience. But, having the spirit of a Highland woman within her, she set out boldly on foot, and arrived at Inchrory at an early hour in the morning. Her husband met her at the door of the house, where she looked for a kind welcome from him, and modestly signified the cause of her coming. "Ha!" exclaimed he proudly, and with anger in his eye. "How is this that you come on foot? How dared you to come home till I sent a horse for you, that you might travel as Inchrory's wife ought to do?" "No one saw how I came," replied his wife meekly. "I met nothing but the moor-cocks and the pease-weeps on the hill."