“Hoot, laird! nae offence!” returned Mrs Catanach. “It was yer ain wyte (_blame_). What gart ye stan’ glowerin’ at a body that gait, ohn telled (_without telling_) them ’at ye was there?” “I thocht ye was luikin’ whaur ye cam frae,” returned the man in tones apologetic and hesitating. “’Deed I fash wi’ nae sic freits,” said Mrs Catanach. “Sae lang ’s ye ken whaur ye’re gaein’ till,” suggested the man. “Toots! I fash as little wi’ that either, and ken jist as muckle aboot the tane as the tither,” she answered with a low oily guttural laugh of contemptuous pity. “I ken mair nor that mysel’, but no muckle,” said the man. “I dinna ken whaur I cam frae, and I dinna ken whaur I’m gaun till; but I ken ’at I’m gaun _whaur_ I cam frae. That stan’s to rizzon, ye see; but they telled me ’at _ye_ kenned a’ aboot whaur we a’ cam frae.” “Deil a bit o’ ’t!” persisted Mrs Catanach, in tones of repudiation. “What care I whaur I cam frae, sae lang ’s--” “Sae lang ’s what, gien ye please?” pleaded the man, with a childlike entreaty in his voice. “Weel----gien ye _wull_ hae ’t--sae lang ’s I cam frae my mither,” said the woman, looking down on the inquirer with a vulgar laugh. The hunchback uttered a shriek of dismay, and turned and fled; and as he turned, long, thin, white hands flashed out of his pockets, pressed against his ears, and intertwined their fingers at the back of his neck. With a marvellous swiftness he shot down the steep descent towards the shore. “The deil’s in ’t ’at I bude to anger him!” said the woman, and walked away, with a short laugh of small satisfaction. The style she had given the hunchback was no nickname. Stephen Stewart was laird of the small property and ancient house of Kirkbyres, of which his mother managed the affairs--hardly _for_ her son, seeing that, beyond his clothes, and five pounds a year of pocket-money, he derived no personal advantage from his possessions. He never went near his own house, for, from some unknown reason, plentifully aimed at in the dark by the neighbours, he had such a dislike to his mother that he could not bear to hear the name of mother, or even the slightest allusion to the relationship. Some said he was a fool; others a madman; some both; none, however, said he was a rogue; and all would have been willing to allow that whatever it might be that caused the difference between him and other men, throughout the disturbing element blew ever and anon the air of a sweet humanity. Along the shore, in the direction of the great rocky promontory that closed in the bay on the west, with his hands still clasped over his ears, as if the awful word were following him, he flew rather than fled. It was nearly low water, and the wet sand afforded an easy road to his flying feet. Betwixt sea and shore, a sail in the offing the sole other moving thing in the solitary landscape, like a hunted creature he sped, his footsteps melting and vanishing behind him in the half-quick sand.