"It's e'en queer that ye heard it now, for deil ane o' the servants durst hae spoken o't had the auld Countess been living. Eh, man, Edie! but she was a trimmer—it wad hae taen a skeely man to hae squared wi' her!—But she's in her grave, and we may loose our tongues a bit fan we meet a friend.—But fare ye weel, Edie—I maun be back to the evening-service. An' ye come to Inverurie maybe sax months awa, dinna forget to ask after Francie Macraw." What one kindly pressed, the other as firmly promised; and the friends having thus parted, with every testimony of mutual regard, the domestic of Lord Glenallan took his road back to the seat of his master, leaving Ochiltree to trace onward his habitual pilgrimage. It was a fine summer evening, and the world—that is, the little circle which was all in all to the individual by whom it was trodden, lay before Edie Ochiltree, for the choosing of his night's quarters. When he had passed the less hospitable domains of Glenallan, he had in his option so many places of refuge for the evening, that he was nice, and even fastidious in the choice. Ailie Sim's public was on the road-side about a mile before him, but there would be a parcel of young fellows there on the Saturday night, and that was a bar to civil conversation. Other "gudemen and gudewives," as the farmers and their dames are termed in Scotland, successively presented themselves to his imagination. But one was deaf, and could not hear him; another toothless, and could not make him hear; a third had a cross temper; and a fourth an ill-natured house-dog. At Monkbarns or Knockwinnock he was sure of a favourable and hospitable reception; but they lay too distant to be conveniently reached that night. "I dinna ken how it is," said the old man, "but I am nicer about my quarters this night than ever I mind having been in my life. I think, having seen a' the braws yonder, and finding out ane may be happier without them, has made me proud o' my ain lot—But I wuss it bode me gude, for pride goeth before destruction. At ony rate, the warst barn e'er man lay in wad be a pleasanter abode than Glenallan House, wi' a' the pictures and black velvet, and silver bonny-wawlies belonging to it— Sae I'll e'en settle at ance, and put in for Ailie Sims."