Rankin ended with a faint guffaw partly at his own humour, partly in the emotion of giving up to a stranger one of his cherished infants. He dived again into the mysterious receptacle in which the puppies feebly squeeled and whined, within reach of his hand, and produced, all warm and blurred from that nest, another ball of fur. “Ye can tak’ your choice,” he said; “this ane is of the line of Roy as well as that ane. It is the last I have, and I dinna see my way to pleasure Lady Jean till maybe geyan weel on in the next year. If ye were to fancy the twa, I wadna grudge them to ye: for I think you know what you’re about with dogues. Would you like to have it? Oh, it’s not to please me but to please you. I can dispose of the double of what I have got, or am like to get. There’s not a person comes to Rosmore but is keen for one of Rankin’s dogues. But I’m that pleased with you and your sense, that, if ye like, I’ll let you have the twa.” Rosamond accepted the favour in her stately way. “Have we any money, Eddy?” she said. It did not in the least trouble her when her brother for answer turned his pockets inside out “It does not matter in the least,” she said. “I should like to have them both, and the money will come somehow.” She was not touched with doubt as Archie had been about the possibilities of paying. She was aware that she was poor, and had not a penny; but most things she wanted were procured for her in one way or another. This had been Rosamond’s experience since ever she remembered, and naturally it gave her mind a great calm. “And yon you were saying about Mr. Johnson?” said the gamekeeper, turning to Eddy when the bargain was made.--“Wha’s that chapping at the door?” he added impatiently. “Some gangrel body with an e’e to the dogues, and muckle Roy out there just a senseless beast that bids a’ body welcome, and hasna a bark in him. Janet, woman! wha’s that chappin’ at the door?” “It’s I,” said a voice that made Eddy start “It’s a friend--of your master’s, my good man.” “My maister’s!” said Rankin, “Wha’s that, I would like to ken? Janet, just shut the door upon his nose, the uncivil person. My maister’s! It will be some English towerist body that kens no better,” he added condescendingly with a wave of his hand. “You may let him come in.” “Why, Rankin,” cried Eddy, “you are in luck! This is the very gentleman--of St Chad’s, Cambridge. Johnson, come in--you’re in luck too, I can tell you. Here’s the champion that holds another view. You’re on the Welsh side, aren’t you?--here’s the great authority, Ros-beg, that takes the other view.” “What?” said Johnson, coming in a little blinded from the winterly sunshine outside into the comparative gloom of the cottage, where the window was half covered with the drawn blind to keep out the sun. Mrs. Rankin had a notion, shared by many simple housekeepers, that the sun puts out the fire. “Eh--ah, who are you? I’ll swear that’s Eddy Saumarez’s voice.”