“Pish! nae such thing,” cried Jaacob, with complacency; “the like of a man like yon shouldna mell with a man like me. It’s no’ a fair battle--I aye say sae--I can tak his measure fast enough, but he can nae mair tak mine than he can flee. Eh, lad! have you ta’en the gate? and no’ a word mair about the plow?” “I’ll take your advice, Jacob,” said Huntley; “the plow can stand till we see what use we’ll have for it; but as for going between the stilts myself, if I do you’ll see me draw as fair a furrow as any plowman about Kirkbride.” “Hurray!” said Jaacob; “the lad has some speerit after a’; never you mind--we’ll send down somebody to see to the plow.” With this assurance, Huntley left the smithy; but not till Jaacob had begun to sing in the most singular of cracked and elvish voices, beating time with emphatic strokes of his hammer, “The Flaxen-headed Cowboy,” a rustic and ancient ditty, much in favor in the country-side. Whether it was the gestures of the gnome which called them forth, or a ludicrous application of the song to himself, Huntley could not tell; but big John and the boy accompanied the chant with audible, yet restrained explosions of laughter. Huntley grew very red in spite of himself, as he hurried along to the little bridge. What a change from the fancy which possessed him as he came up the village street half an hour ago! He could not have believed that his hypothetical inheritance could have vanished so utterly; somehow he could not even recall that evanescent splendor. It was no longer the heir of Melmar who ascended the brae of Tyne, through the trees and scattered cottages towards the white-gabled manse. It was the same Huntley Livingstone who had buried his father at midnight, who had set his face against the evil fortune which seemed ready to overwhelm his house, and who had pledged himself to win in a new country a new and stable fortune for the race of Norlaw. But the young man was by no means contented to part so lightly with his magnificent vision. He did all he could by dint of thinking to bring it back to his mind; but even when he paused at the top of the little hill and surveyed once more the fair fields of Melmar, he could not recover the enthusiasm and fervor of his former thoughts. Bowed Jaacob, with the odd philosophy which perceived other people’s mistakes, but could not see its own ludicrous pretensions--big John, who believed in his brother--and the ruddy darkness of the smithy, where reality made a rude assault upon his vision--had disenchanted Huntley. He stood on the brae of Tyne, seeing every thing with practical and undazzled eyes, feeling himself to have a certain claim, difficult and doubtful, yet real, upon the lands before him; but seeing all the obstacles which lay in its way. And, distinct from this, far apart and separate, with a world between, lay the fortune far more secure and certain which Huntley had to make with his own hands.