Susan was with Peggy in the kitchen, solacing her anxieties by a discussion of where her brother could be, and what he was most likely to be doing. This summons made her jump, as she stood listlessly by the window. Peggy, without saying a word, made a stride to the side door, and went round to the corner of the house to confront this incautious messenger. Susan, trembling and afraid to join her, sprang up upon the wooden chair, and peeped out of the window. There she saw Peggy in the act of assaulting the unfortunate John, shaking him by the shoulder, and demanding to know if _that_ was the way to deliver a message at a gentleman's house. John scratched his head and shrugged his shoulders: he was too much accustomed to ill-usage from women to feel much resentment; he only looked sheepish, and, patting the mare on the shoulder, came round with Peggy to the side door. There she introduced him on tiptoe, taking elaborate precautions of quietness, which were all intended to impose upon John, and silence his heavy feet and country clogs to the greatest degree of silence possible. "It's not so heavy but what a man like you can carry it down on your shoulder," said Peggy; "and if ye make a bump on the road, Gude forgive ye, for I'll no, nor the master, if he's disturbed in his study. I would not advise you to rouse up _him_. Whisht then!--if you have any regard for your own peace, hold your tongue! In the very stairs, and the study no furder off nor yon door! If ye cannot be quiet, it's as much as your ears are worth!" Thus warned, John went creaking on his tiptoes upstairs, and was introduced to Mr. Horace's room, where the furniture had been specially arranged, and where the good order and trim array of everything made no small impression on his simplicity. John got downstairs again in safety, jealously watched by Peggy, who stamped her foot at him from the foot of the stairs, and produced the "bump" which she had deprecated by her super-caution. However, the business was performed in safety, the cart was drawn up to the side door, and Horace's goods safely deposited in it--Mr. Scarsdale, up to this moment, taking no notice of the proceeding. Then John returned into the kitchen, to have a little chat with Peggy, who was nothing loth. Peggy did all the marketing for the family, and though perfectly impenetrable and deaf to all questions about her master, was rather popular in the neighbouring villages, as a housekeeper and purveyor, who was not sparing in her provisions for her master's table, was like to be. John stood, with his hat in one hand and a glass of beer of Peggy's own brewing in the other, describing to Mr. Scarsdale's factotum the events of the previous days--Th' young squire gone out of the Grange, no one knew where; his own son listed, and gone for a soldier; and Mr. Horry--ah! Mr. Horry was deep, he never let on of _his_ secrets: he supposed the family knew where the young gentleman was.