’Where’s my boy, Mistress Tode?’ cried the newcomer fiercely, to our friend the cook, who stood upon the steps. ’What hae ye dune wi’ my laddie at the black house of Cassillis? He left his hame to come here, by command o’ my lord and young Launce of Culzean, at five this morning. An’ Jock Edgar met him set on a pony between twa men on horseback, and he declares that the puir lad was greeting sair. What hae ye dune wi’ him, ye misleared, ill-favoured Tode woman that ye are?’ ’Weel ken ye, Meg Dalrymple,’ cried Mistress Thomas Tode, ’that I wadna steal ony chance-gotten loon of yours. Faith na, I wadna fyle my parritch-spurtle on his back. We shelter nae lazy gaberlunzie speldrons in the house of Cassillis. There is enough rack and ruin about the countryside as it is, withoot gatherin’ in every gipsy brat and prowling night-hawk to its walls. Gin ye come here to insult my master, a belted Earl, I’ll e’en set the dowgs on ye, ye gruesome ill-tongued limmer woman!’ I saw that this was to be altogether another kind of tulzie from those clattering bickers of the sword-blades, that I knew something about. So I signed to the Dominie to be silent, for here of a surety were two foemen worthy of each other’s points. ’Ye shall cast no stour in my e’en, certes,’ cried Meg Dalrymple. ’I ken ye, ye auld yeld crummie Tode. Ye hae nae bairns o’ your ain, and ye wad kidnap the bonny bairn o’ a decent woman.’ ’I daresay no, "nae bairns o’ my ain," quo’ she,’ cried Mistress Tode, roused to high anger. ’I micht hae had as mony as a clockin’ hen, gin I had gane the gate ye gaed, Meg Dalrymple. I’ll hae the law on ye, ye randy, casting up my man’s infirmity to me.’ ’Your "man," quo’ she,’ retorted Meg Dalrymple, ’ca’ ye that auld bundle o’ dish-clouts tied aboot wi’ hippens—a man! Save us, one micht as soon bed ayont a pair of auld duddy breeks!’ ’Ay, my man,’ cried Mistress Tode, ’what hae ye to say, ye shameless woman, again Sir Thomas Tode, that has been Earl’s chaplain for forty year and my lawfu’ wedded man for ten?’ Mistress Tode rang out the titles like a herald now, when her husband was gainsayed and made light of. But we know that on occasions she could treat him cavalierly enough. ’I wad as sune mairry a heather cow for soopin’ the rink at the channel stanes,’ cried Meg Dalrymple. And this implication bit deeper into the feelings of the lady of Sir Thomas Tode than all the other reproaches, for the brush of tonsure hair was a sore subject of jesting with her, as I well knew.