"He couldna be said to haud up his head after his brother's wife and his niece were turned out o' their ain house; and he had himsell sair borrowing siller to stand the law,--but it was in the latter end o' King James's days; and Basil Olifant, who claimed the estate, turned a papist to please the managers, and then naething was to be refused him. Sae the law gaed again the leddies at last, after they had fought a weary sort o' years about it; and, as I said before, the major ne'er held up his head again. And then cam the pitting awa o' the Stewart line; and, though he had but little reason to like them, he couldna brook that, and it clean broke the heart o' him; and creditors cam to Charnwood and cleaned out a' that was there,--he was never rich, the gude auld man, for he dow'd na see onybody want." "He was indeed," said the stranger, with a faltering voice, "an admirable man,--that is, I have heard that he was so. So the ladies were left without fortune, as well as without a protector?" "They will neither want the tane nor the tother while Lord Evandale lives," said Jenny; "he has been a true friend in their griefs. E'en to the house they live in is his lordship's; and never man, as my auld gudemother used to say, since the days of the Patriarch Jacob, served sae lang and sae sair for a wife as gude Lord Evandale has dune." "And why," said the stranger, with a voice that quivered with emotion, "why was he not sooner rewarded by the object of his attachment?" "There was the lawsuit to be ended," said Jenny readily, "forby many other family arrangements." "Na, but," said Cuddie, "there was another reason forby; for the young leddy--" "Whisht, hand your tongue, and sup your sowens," said his wife; "I see the gentleman's far frae weel, and downa eat our coarse supper. I wad kill him a chicken in an instant." "There is no occasion," said the stranger; "I shall want only a glass of water, and to be left alone." "You'll gie yoursell the trouble then to follow me," said Jenny, lighting a small lantern, "and I'll show you the way."