“Pish! you’re a blackcoat, going to be,” said Jaacob; “there’s your friend the minister there, gaun up the brae. I sent _him_ hame wi’ a flea in his lug. What the deevil business has the like of him to meddle in our concerns? The country’s coming to ruin, forsooth! because the franchise is coming to a man like me! Get away with you, callant! as soon as you come to man’s estate you’ll be like a’ the rest! But ye may just as weel take an honest man’s, advice, Cosmo. If we dinna get it we’ll tak it, and that’ll be seen before the world afore mony days are past.” “What do you think the news will be?” asked Cosmo. “Think! I’m past thinking,” cried Jaacob, thrusting some imaginary person away; “haud your tongue--can a man think when he’s wound up the length of taking swurd in hand, if need should be? If we dinna get it, we’ll tak it--do ye hear?--that’s a’ I’m thinking in these days.” And Jaacob swung along the road, working his long arms rather more than he did his feet, so that their action seemed part of his locomotive power. It was astonishing, too, to see how swiftly, how steadily, and with what a “way” upon him, the little giant strode onward, swinging the immense brown hands, knotted and sinewy, which it was hard to suppose could ever have been thrust through the narrow cuffs of his coat, like balancing weights on either side of him. Before them was the long line of dusty summer road disappearing down a slope, and cut off, not by the sky, but by the Eildons, which began to blacken in the fading light--behind them the lights of the village--above, in a pale, warm sky, the one big dilating star and the morsel of moon; but the thoughts of Jaacob, and even of Cosmo, were on a lesser luminary--the red lantern of the coach, which was not yet to be seen by the keenest eyes advancing through the summer dimness from the south. “Hang the lairds and the ministers!” cried Jaacob, after a pause, “it’s easy to see what a puir grip they have, and how well they ken it. Free institutions dinna agree with the like of primogeniture and thae inventions of the deevil. Let’s but hae a reformed Parliament, and we’ll learn them better manners. There’s your grand Me’mar setting up for a leader amang the crew, presenting an address, confound his impudence! as if he wasna next hand to a swindler himself.” “Jacob, do you know any thing about his son?” asked Cosmo, eagerly. “He’s a virtuoso--he’s a dilettawnti; I ken nae ill of him,” said Jaacob, who pronounced these titles with a little contempt, yet secretly had a respect for them; “he hasna been seen in this country, so far as I’ve heard tell of, for mony a day. A lad’s no aye to blame for his father and his mother; it’s a thing folk in general have nae choice in--but he’s useless to his ain race, either as friend or foe.” “Is he a good fellow, then? or is he like Me’mar?” cried Cosmo.