“Confound the offence, Mr. MacKellar!” said I. “Do you not think I am just too glad at this minute to hear a Scottish tongue and see a tartan waistcoat? Heilan' or Lowlan', we are all the same” when our feet are off the heather. “Not exactly,” he corrected, “but still and on we understand each other. You must be thinking it gey droll, sir, that a band of strangers in a common tavern would have the boldness to stare at you like my friends there, and toss a dice about you in front of your face, but that is the difference between us. If I had been in your place I would have thrown the jug across at them, but here I am not better nor the rest, because the dice fell to me, and I was one that must decide the wadger.” “Oh, and was I the object of a wadger?” said I, wondering what we were coming to. “Indeed, and that you were,” said he shamefacedly, “and I'm affronted to tell it. But when Grant saw you first he swore you were a countryman, and there was some difference of opinion.” “And what, may I ask, did Kilbride side with?” “Oh,” said he promptly, “I had never a doubt about that. I knew you were Scots, but what beat me was to say whether you were Hielan' or Lowlan'.” “And how, if it's a fair question, did you come to the conclusion that I was a countryman of any sort?” said I. He laughed softly, and “Man,” said he, “I could never make any mistake about that, whatever of it. There's many a bird that's like the woodcock, but the woodcock will aye be kennin' which is which, as the other man said. Thae bones were never built on bread and wine. It's a French coat you have there, and a cockit hat (by your leave), but to my view you were as plainly from Scotland as if you had a blue bonnet on your head and a sprig of heather in your lapels. And here am I giving you the strange cow's welcome (as the other man said), and that is all inquiry and no information. You must just be excusing our bit foolish wadger, and if the proposal would come favourably from myself, that is of a notable family, though at present under a sort of cloud, as the other fellow said, I would be proud to have you share in the bottle of wine that was dependent upon Grant's impudent wadger. I can pass my word for my friends there that they are all gentry like ourselves--of the very best, in troth, though not over-nice in putting this task on myself.” I would have liked brawly to spend an hour out any company than my own, but the indulgence was manifestly one involving the danger of discovery; it was, as I told myself, the greatest folly to be sitting in a tavern at all, so MacKellar's manner immediately grew cold when he saw a swithering in my countenance. “Of course,” said he, reddening and rising, “of course, every gentleman has his own affairs, and I would be the last to make a song of it if you have any dubiety about my friends and me. I'll allow the thing looks very like a gambler's contrivance.”