I was uncertain in what terms to accost a personage so uncommon, when Mr. Jarvie, breaking the ice with a preparatory cough (for the speed with which he had been brought into her presence had again impeded his respiration), addressed her as follows:--"Uh! uh! &c. &c. I am very happy to have this _joyful_ opportunity" (a quaver in his voice strongly belied the emphasis which he studiously laid on the word joyful)--"this joyful occasion," he resumed, trying to give the adjective a more suitable accentuation, "to wish my kinsman Robin's wife a very good morning--Uh! uh!--How's a' wi' ye?" (by this time he had talked himself into his usual jog-trot manner, which exhibited a mixture of familiarity and self-importance)--"How's a' wi' ye this lang time? Ye'll hae forgotten me, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as your cousin--uh! uh!--but ye'll mind my father, Deacon Nicol Jarvie, in the Saut Market o' Glasgow?--an honest man he was, and a sponsible, and respectit you and yours. Sae, as I said before, I am right glad to see you, Mrs. MacGregor Campbell, as my kinsman's wife. I wad crave the liberty of a kinsman to salute you, but that your gillies keep such a dolefu' fast haud o' my arms, and, to speak Heaven's truth and a magistrate's, ye wadna be the waur of a cogfu' o' water before ye welcomed your friends." There was something in the familiarity of this introduction which ill suited the exalted state of temper of the person to whom it was addressed, then busied with distributing dooms of death, and warm from conquest in a perilous encounter. "What fellow are you," she said, "that dare to claim kindred with the MacGregor, and neither wear his dress nor speak his language?--What are you, that have the tongue and the habit of the hound, and yet seek to lie down with the deer?" "I dinna ken," said the undaunted Bailie, "if the kindred has ever been weel redd out to you yet, cousin--but it's ken'd, and can be prov'd. My mother, Elspeth MacFarlane, was the wife of my father, Deacon Nicol Jarvie--peace be wi' them baith!--and Elspeth was the daughter of Parlane MacFarlane, at the Sheeling o' Loch Sloy. Now, this Parlane MacFarlane, as his surviving daughter Maggy MacFarlane, _alias_ MacNab, wha married Duncan MacNab o' Stuckavrallachan, can testify, stood as near to your gudeman, Robert MacGregor, as in the fourth degree of kindred, for"-- The virago lopped the genealogical tree, by demanding haughtily, "If a stream of rushing water acknowledged any relation with the portion withdrawn from it for the mean domestic uses of those who dwelt on its banks?"