spring, which, as I'm tauld, made unco havoc amang them or they wan hame; and this they ca'd picknick, and a plague to them! And sae the jig was begun after her leddyship's pipe, and mony a mad measure has been danced sin' syne; for down cam masons and murgeon-makers, and preachers and player-folk, and Episcopalians and Methodists, and fools and fiddlers, and Papists and pie-bakers, and doctors and drugsters; by the shop-folk, that sell trash and trumpery at three prices--and so up got the bonny new Well, and down fell the honest auld town of Saint Ronan's, where blithe decent folk had been heartsome eneugh for mony a day before ony o' them were born, or ony sic vapouring fancies kittled in their cracked brains." "What said your landlord, the Laird of Saint Ronan's, to all this?" said Tyrrel. "Is't _my_ landlord ye are asking after, Maister Francie?--the Laird of Saint Ronan's is nae landlord of mine, and I think ye might hae minded that.--Na, na, thanks be to Praise! Meg Dods is baith land_lord_ and land_leddy_. Ill eneugh to keep the doors open as it is, let be facing Whitsunday and Martinmas--an auld leather pock there is, Maister Francie, in ane of worthy Maister Bindloose the sheriff-clerk's pigeon-holes, in his dowcot of a closet in the burgh; and therein is baith charter and sasine, and special service to boot; and that will be chapter and verse, speer when ye list." "I had quite forgotten," said Tyrrel, "that the inn was your own; though I remember you were a considerable landed proprietor." "Maybe I am," replied Meg, "maybe I am not: and if I be, what for no?--But as to what the Laird, whose grandfather was my father's landlord, said to the new doings yonder--he just jumped at the ready penny, like a cock at a grosert, and feu'd the bonny holm beside the Well, that they ca'd the Saint-Well-holm, that was like the best land in his aught, to be carved, and biggit, and howkit up, just at the pleasure of Jock Ashler the stane-mason, that ca's himsell an arkiteck--there's nae living for new words in this new warld neither, and that is another vex to auld folk such as me.--It's a shame o' the young Laird, to let his auld patrimony gang the gate it's like to gang, and my heart is sair to see't, though it has but little cause to care what comes of him or his." "Is it the same Mr. Mowbray," said Mr. Tyrrel, "who still holds the estate?--the old gentleman, you know, whom I had some dispute with"---- "About hunting moorfowl upon the Spring-well-head muirs?" said Meg. "Ah, lad! honest Mr. Bindloose brought you neatly off there--Na, it's no that honest man, but his son John Mowbray--the t'other has slept down-by in Saint Ronan's Kirk for these six or seven years." "Did he leave," asked Tyrrel, with something of a faltering voice, "no other child than the present Laird?" "No other son," said Meg; "and there's e'en eneugh, unless he could have left a better ane." "He died then," said Tyrrel, "excepting this son, without children?"