'That pair of thirteen hands each are Miss Lindsay's.' 'Ah,' thought Roland, a little mollified, 'one of them will mount Annot. Mr. Sharpe dabbles a little in horse-flesh, I have heard?' 'And loses sometimes, Maister Roland.' 'How do you know?' 'By his face, for then he girns like a sheep's heid in the smith's tangs. He kens as little o' dogs, or he wadna gang aboot wi' a dust-hole pointer at his heels.' 'What kind of pointer is that, Buckle?' 'A cur o' nae mair breed than himsel',' replied the old groom, who evidently had no love for the steward. 'Hech, me!' he added under his breath, as Roland left the stable-yard with evident disgust and annoyance in his face and air, 'is he yet to learn that a bad servitor never made a gude maister, and that a sinking maister mak's a rising man? Dule seems to hang o'er Earlshaugh!' But more mortification awaited Roland. He knew that there was an infinity of matters connected with the tenants--rents, repairs, timber, oxen, fences, and winter forage, renewal of leases, and so forth--on which there was no appearance of him, the heir, the only son, being consulted; and of this he soon had unpleasant proof. 'Remember what I urged, dearest Roland,' said his sister, as she joined him at the _porte cochère_ and lifted her loving and smiling blue eyes to his, while clasping both hands over his arm and hanging upon him. 'Do keep your temper in any interview you may have with this man Sharpe, who actually affects to think it a condescension to accept his post in our household, as he has been heard to say that a gentleman must live somehow, as well as other people do.' 'I must see him,' said Roland through his clenched teeth, as he entered the library, where he found Mr. Hawkey Sharpe, who was usually installed there at the same hour daily, on business matters intent, occupying the late Laird's easy-chair, seated at his table, which was littered with account-books, letters, and papers, while at his back hung on the wall a full-length, by Scougal, of that Colonel Lindsay who figured in the Legend of the Weird Yett, looking grim, haughty, and proud, as the subjects of most old portraits do, when every gentleman looked like a great lord. Sharpe saw the black expression that hovered in Roland's sombre face, and, rising, accorded him a bow, and, in deference to the presence of Maude (and perhaps of his sister, who entered the room at the same moment), laid aside his cigar. 'Among some letters to me this morning,' said Roland, 'is one from old Duncan Ged, for a renewal of his lease of the Mains of Dron.' 'But I have no idea of doing so,' replied Mr. Sharpe, dipping his pen in the ink-bottle. '_You?_' queried Roland. 'I--I mean, that is----' 'Who or what the devil do you mean, Mr. Sharpe?' said Roland, undeterred by the pressure of Maude's little hand on his arm. 'I mean that Mrs. Lindsay, acting on my advice, has no intention of doing so.'