And so presently we came to the King's Arms. Never was bold wooer in a more hopeless position. Whichever way I turned the case was desperate--if I resisted, I could not expect to fare better than Tam Haggart, whom that whip shank had beaten to the ground on the Corse o' Slakes. If I let myself drift, then farewell all hope of Irma Maitland. I hesitated and was lost. But who in my place could have bettered it--save by not being such a portentous fool to begin with? But when that is in a man, it will out. I entered the King's Arms meekly, and before I knew what I was doing I had been presented to three or four solid-thighed, thick-headed, stout-legginged farmers as "Our Lottie's intended." They laughed, and came near to shaking my hand off. I felt that if I backed out after that, I never could show my face in Eden Valley again. Then we proceeded to business. I had not been accustomed to drink anything stronger than water, and I was not going to begin now--so much of sense I had left in me. So as often as the mighty farmer of Birkenbog had his tankard pointed at the cornice of the commercial room of the King's Arms, I poured the contents of mine carefully among the sawdust on the floor. And then my formidable "future" father-in-law got to the root of the matter. "Father know about this?" He shot out the question as from a catapult. "No, sir," said I, "I did not think of troubling him just yet--till----" "Till what?" "Till things were a bit more settled," I faltered. He put his loosely clenched fist on my knee. It appeared as large as the flat part of a pair of smith's bellows. "Well, that's what we are here now for, eh?" he said. "I doan't blame ye, you young dog. Now I like a fine up-standing wench myself, well filled out, none o' your flails done up in a bean-sack, nor yet a tea-pot little body that makes the folk laugh as they see her trotting alongside a personable man like me. Lottie will do ye fine. She's none great at the books--takes after her mother in that, but she's a good girl, and I'll warrant ye, she will keep up her end of an argument well enough after a year or two's practice. But, mind you, lad, there's to be nothing come of this till I see you safe through college as a doctor. Fees? Nonsense! Go to the hospitals, man, I'll pay for that part. It can come off what I have put aside to give the man that took Lottie off my hands! A doctor--yes, that's the business, and one sore needed here in this very Eden Valley! _Whisht_--there--who think ye bought old Andrew Leith's practice and house? Who keeps the lads from the college there and sends them packing at the end of every six months? Why, me--Anderson of Birkenbog. So haste ye fast, and when ye are ready, the house is ready, and the practice and the tocher--and as for the lass ye have made it up with her yourself, as I understand."