"Mr. Bindloose," said she, "I am no sure that you may mind, about six or seven years ago, that there were twa daft English callants, lodgers of mine, that had some trouble from auld St. Ronan's about shooting on the Springwell-head muirs." "I mind it as weel as yesterday, Mistress," said the Clerk; "by the same token you gave me a note for my trouble, (which wasna worth speaking about,) and bade me no bring in a bill against the puir bairns--ye had aye a kind heart, Mrs. Dods." "Maybe, and maybe no, Mr. Bindloose--that is just as I find folk.--But concerning these lads, they baith left the country, and, as I think, in some ill blude wi' ane another, and now the auldest and the doucest of the twa came back again about a fortnight sin' syne, and has been my guest ever since." "Aweel, and I trust he is not at his auld tricks again, goodwife?" answered the Clerk. "I havena sae muckle to say either wi' the new Sheriff or the Bench of Justices as I used to hae, Mrs. Dods--and the Procurator-fiscal is very severe on poaching, being borne out by the new Association--few of our auld friends of the Killnakelty are able to come to the sessions now, Mrs. Dods." "The waur for the country, Mr. Bindloose," replied the old lady--"they were decent, considerate men, that didna plague a puir herd callant muckle about a moorfowl or a mawkin, unless he turned common fowler--Sir Robert Ringhorse used to say, the herd lads shot as mony gleds and pyots as they did game.--But new lords new laws--naething but fine and imprisonment, and the game no a feather the plentier. If I wad hae a brace or twa of birds in the house, as every body looks for them after the twelfth--I ken what they are like to cost me--And what for no?--risk maun be paid for.--There is John Pirner himsell, that has keepit the muir-side thirty year in spite of a' the lairds in the country, shoots, he tells me, now-a-days, as if he felt a rape about his neck." "It wasna about ony game business, then, that you wanted advice?" said Bindloose, who, though somewhat of a digresser himself, made little allowance for the excursions of others from the subject in hand. "Indeed is it no, Mr. Bindloose," said Meg; "but it is e'en about this unhappy callant that I spoke to you about.--Ye maun ken I have cleiket a particular fancy to this lad, Francis Tirl--a fancy that whiles surprises my very sell, Mr. Bindloose, only that there is nae sin in it." "None--none in the world, Mrs. Dods," said the lawyer, thinking at the same time within his own mind, "Oho! the mist begins to clear up--the young poacher has hit the mark, I see--winged the old barren grey hen!--ay, ay,--a marriage-contract, no doubt--but I maun gie her line.--Ye are a wise woman, Mrs. Dods," he continued aloud, "and can doubtless consider the chances and the changes of human affairs."