"The devil you did, Mick!" replied the Lord of the Manor, also aside;--"Well, I am obliged to you for giving me some reason for the ill thoughts I had of him--I knew he was some trumpery scamp--I'll blow him, by"---- "Whisht--stop--hush--haud your tongue, St. Ronan's,--keep a calm sough--ye see, I intended the process, by your worthy father's desire, before the Quarter Sessions--but I ken na--The auld sheriff-clerk stood the lad's friend--and some of the justices thought it was but a mistake of the marches, and sae we couldna get a judgment--and your father was very ill of the gout, and I was feared to vex him, and so I was fain to let the process sleep, for fear they had been assoilzied.--Sae ye had better gang cautiously to wark, St. Ronan's, for though they were summoned, they were not convict." "Could you not take up the action again?" said Mr. Mowbray. "Whew! it's been prescribed sax or seeven year syne. It is a great shame, St. Ronan's, that the game laws, whilk are the very best protection that is left to country gentlemen against the encroachment of their inferiors, rin sae short a course of prescription--a poacher may just jink ye back and forward like a flea in a blanket, (wi' pardon)--hap ye out of ae county and into anither at their pleasure, like pyots--and unless ye get your thum-nail on them in the very nick o' time, ye may dine on a dish of prescription, and sup upon an absolvitor." "It is a shame indeed," said Mowbray, turning from his confident and agent, and addressing himself to the company in general, yet not without a peculiar look directed to Tyrrel. "What is a shame, sir?" said Tyrrel, conceiving that the observation was particularly addressed to him. "That we should have so many poachers upon our muirs, sir," answered St. Ronan's. "I sometimes regret having countenanced the Well here, when I think how many guns it has brought on my property every season." "Hout fie! hout awa, St. Ronan's!" said his Man of Law; "no countenance the Waal? What would the country-side be without it, I would be glad to ken? It's the greatest improvement that has been made on this country since the year forty-five. Na, na, it's no the Waal that's to blame for the poaching and delinquencies on the game. We maun to the Aultoun for the howf of that kind of cattle. Our rules at the Waal are clear and express against trespassers on the game." "I can't think," said the Squire, "what made my father sell the property of the old change-house yonder, to the hag that keeps it open out of spite, I think, and to harbour poachers and vagabonds!--I cannot conceive what made him do so foolish a thing!" "Probably because your father wanted money, sir," said Tyrrel, dryly; "and my worthy landlady, Mrs. Dods, had got some.--You know, I presume, sir, that I lodge there?"