Halbert Graeme was fully bent upon obeying the injunctions of his kinsman, and had already, thanks to his youthful strength, high spirits, and grey pony, made considerable acquaintance with his ancestral country. There were various good neighbours too who showed all willingness to aid him, and the race of young gentlemen who wrote themselves “younger of” all the castles and towers, shaws, braes, and holms of the district, opened their ranks with all imaginable pleasure to admit Halbert, “younger of Mossgray.” Halbert was happy in a frank temper, and no great share of ideality. His list of acquaintance grew like Jonah’s gourd. The fame of him went up the water and down the water; from the county-town some fifteen miles away, to the furthest bounds of the Scottish border, the landed community of the fair Southern shire had heard of the new heir of the Graemes. Nor was it alone the landed community; Halbert, like Hope Oswald, extended his friendship beyond his own exclusive class. Robbie Carlyle, the fisherman, grasped his bonnet when he met “the young laird” with a fervent salutation only accorded to his favourites, and John Brown, in the excitement of a busy market-day in the thronged Main Street of Fendie, proclaimed him: “Nane o’ your whilliewhaws--just a real, decent lad that kens a man o’ sense when he sees him!” There were one or two dissentients. On a January day, Halbert, escorting Lilias on a walk longer than was usual to her, had the evil fortune to pass a potato field--a field which _had_ borne potatoes--where Robert Paterson, the farmer of Whinnyside, was indolently superintending his two ploughs. It was a small farm, and its tenant was no great agriculturist. He “hadna just made up his mind what the crap was to be. Some said there wasna muckle dependence to be putten on the taties, where they had ance turned out bad--though his had been no that ill the year--and some said the taties, noo, in thir times, paid better than the corn--and some said naithing paid ava; for his pairt he didna ken; he hadna made up his mind.” Halbert was very active, and had a considerable share of the respectable qualities called sense and prudence. So he suggested to the good man of Whinnyside, that he was employing the most effectual means for securing that “naething should pay ava,” a reproof which did exceedingly offend and amaze the indignant Robert. “He’s a bonnie ane, indeed!” said the angry farmer when Halbert had passed on, “to gie advice to a man that might be his faither--forbye being born on the land. I hae nae broo o’ thae keen Norlands. Ane would think they were learnt to put this and that thegither afore they were breekit--and the greed o’ them! considering and planning how to make the maist o’ everything; as if there was nocht to be done in this world but gather gear!” But Robert Paterson was alone in his dissent--in all the district the feeling was strong in favour of the Norland Halbert.