Thus relieved, the doctor recovered his feet; but he was--as Elspeth described him in a communication made not long after--"a sair lookin' chiel!" He had lost his hat, dusted his coat, and found a sad rent in one leg of his nether garments, not to mention the rage which flashed in his eye and almost foamed from his mouth. For the first moment after the rescue he seemed to have a fancy for "pitching into" old Elspeth, unreasonable as such a course would have been after her calling off the dog and finally lugging him off by main force; and he did hurl after her an appellation or two which might have furnished a rhyme to the name of the Scottish national disease; but the stout serving woman quelled him with this significant threat, and went on her way, dragging the dog towards his kennel in the backyard: "'Deed, if ye can't keep a ceevil tongue in yer heid, I'll no be holdin' the tyke awa from ye a bit langer, and he'll eat ye up, I doubt!" At that juncture the discomfited doctor caught sight of Robert Brand and his daughter, in the door and on the piazza, and he strode in to them without further ado, whip still in hand, rage still in his face, and threatening enough in his manner to indicate that he intended to cowhide so many of the family as he could find, male and female. "Who let out that infernal dog?" was his first salutation, without first addressing either the old man or his daughter by name. "He must have broken loose, himself. Indeed, Doctor, we are so sorry--" began little Elsie, who had really been frightened out of her wits, and who had that organ unknown to the phrenologists, called Hospitality, very largely developed. "Hold your tongue, girl, and let me attend to my own business!" was the surly interruption of the invalid father, who had stopped laughing, and who had at that juncture a very low development of the corresponding organ. "We are not sorry at all. Dr. Pomeroy, I told you this morning, when I ordered you out of this house, never to come near it again; and you had better paid attention to the order." "Then _you_ had that dog set loose!"