Could such a proposal have come from an equal whom he had insulted, the marquis would hardly have waited for a challenge: to have done a wrong was nothing; to confess it would be disgrace. But here the offended party was of such ludicrously low condition, and the proposal therefore so ridiculous, that it struck the marquis merely as a yet more amusing prolongation of the joke. Hence his reception of it was with uproarious laughter, in which all his visitors joined. “Damn the old wind-bag!” said the marquis. “Damn the knife that made the mischief,” said Lady Florimel. When the merriment had somewhat subsided, Lord Meikleham, the youth of soldierly aspect, would have proposed whipping the highland beggar, he said, were it not for the probability the old clothes-horse would fall to pieces; whereupon Lady Florimel recommended him to try it on the young fisherman, who might possibly hold together; whereat the young lord looked both mortified and spiteful. I believe some compunction, perhaps even admiration, mingled itself, in this case, with Lord Lossie’s relish of an odd and amusing situation, and that he was inclined to compliance with the conditions of atonement, partly for the sake of mollifying the wounded spirit of the highlander. He turned to his daughter and said,-- “Did you fix an hour, Flory, for your poor father to make _amende honorable_?” “No, papa; I did not go so far as that.” The marquis kept a few moments’ grave silence. “Your lordship is surely not meditating such a solecism?” said Mr Morrison, the justice-laird. “Indeed I am,” said the marquis. “It would be too great a condescension,” said Mr Cavins; “and your lordship will permit me to doubt the wisdom of it. These fishermen form a class by themselves; they are a rough set of men, and only too ready to despise authority. You will not only injure the prestige of your rank, my lord, but expose yourself to endless imposition.” “The spirit moves me, and we are commanded not to quench the spirit,” rejoined the marquis with a merry laugh, little thinking that he was actually describing what was going on in him--that the spirit of good concerning which he jested, was indeed not working in him, but gaining on him, in his resolution of that moment. “Come, Flory,” said the marquis, to whom it gave a distinct pleasure to fly in the face of advice, “we’ll go at once, and have it over.” So they set out together for the Seaton, followed by the bagpipes, carried by the same servant as before, and were received by the overjoyed Malcolm, and ushered into his grandfather’s presence. Whatever may have been the projected attitude of the marquis, the moment he stood on the piper’s floor, the _generosus_, that is the gentleman, in him, got the upper hand, and his behaviour to the old man was not polite merely, but respectful. At no period in the last twenty years had he been so nigh the kingdom of heaven as he was now when making his peace with the blind piper.