"Your patience, Madam," said the smiling Fitzherbert, "I mention these characteristics in explanation. My lord is a stranger, not acquainted with the superior character of the natives of this soil. A most distinguished peasantry, moral and intelligent--but vulgar nevertheless, and intruding on his privacy. There is some natural hauteur perhaps--what might be expected from an English nobleman of high family, accustomed to all the privileges of exalted rank, and shrinking from undue familiarity. He really cannot bear intrusion, and therefore shut up the by-way--positively compelled by his delicate feelings--trains of rustics passing through his private grounds! His Lordship could not permit it." Mrs. Catherine could bear this no longer--she was walking through the room in towering wrath and indignation. "An English nobleman! an English cheat and sharper! enjoying his ill-gotten gains under a roof, that I marvel does not fall upon the reprobate cattle he has gathered below it. Vulgar intrusion! the passing-by of honorable men and women, that would not change the honest name of their birth, for the disgrace of his wealth and his sin. _His_ private grounds! and who, if it were not the master-spirit of all iniquity, procured that the fair lands of Strathoran should ever brook him as their lord? You, your very self, pitiful animal as you are, the hired servant of this prosperous iniquity, doing its evil bidding, are scarce so abhorrent to decent folk as the master of you; the malignant tempting spirit, that led an innocent youth into the mire of sin and folly, that he might rob him of his inheritance; and now, can venture here, in the very face of me, who know his villanies, to set up for a man of delicate frame and tender mind, shrinking from the lawful passers-by of a peaceable parish; folk of lineage and blood, if that were all, an hundred-fold better than himself!" Vehemently, and inspired with indignation, Mrs. Catherine spoke, the floor thrilling beneath her hasty steps. "Fitz," whispered the astonished lad, "the old lady has the best of it--she's right." Fitzherbert assumed an air of offended innocence. "Really, Madam, after this language--I am amazed--astonished!"-- "And who, think ye, in this house or country is concerned, that you should be astonished or amazed?" interrupted Mrs. Catherine; "or what are you, that I should hold parley with your like, and profane the air of my dwelling with your master's unclean name? Answer me my demand with as much truthfulness as is in you, and begone from my house. I will have the breath of no such vermin near me." "Upon my word!" exclaimed the astounded Fitzherbert, "this is perfectly unparalleled; if a gentleman were using such language to me--" "You would fight him," said Mrs. Catherine, disdainfully. "Ay! presuming that he was inclined so to demean himself, and was not content with laying his whip about your shoulders, as Marjory Falconer did."