“It’s fine romancing,” said Lord Eskside. “Where’s the t’other of your bonnie boys, my lady? And where is your proof of this one that will satisfy a court of law? Likeness is all very well, and natural instinct’s all very well, but they’ll have little effect on the Court of Session. And though he’s a haverel in private life, Sandy Pringle was always a clever lawyer. If you do not find the woman there will be a lawsuit, that will leave Eskside but an empty title, and melt all the lands away.” “We’ll find the woman,” said the old lady, clasping her fine nervous hands. “I’ll move earth and heaven before I’ll let anything come in my boy’s way.” At this moment Val burst in, rosy and excited, with his grandfather’s stick, which in the vehemence of their new ideas both the child and the old man had forgotten. “Grandma, I want that little girl to play with. Send over directly,” cried Val, in hot impatience, “to get me the little girl!” “You have enough on your hands, my lady,” said Lord Eskside. CHAPTER X. The Hewan was not a cottage of gentility. It was too small, too homely, too much like a growth of the soil, to belong to any class that could be described as _ornée_. The roof indeed was not thatched, but it was of red tiles, so overgrown with lichens as almost to resemble a thatch, except in the rich colour, which, to tell the truth, very few people appreciated. Its present owner was a shopkeeper in Lasswade, in whose heart there were many searchings about the vulgarity of its appearance, which he felt sure was the reason why it was not more easily let for the summer; and this good man had almost made up his mind to the expense required for a good slate roof, when Mr Pringle fortunately appeared and engaged it “as it was.” A sort of earthen embankment, low and thick, encircled the little platform on which it stood. There was nothing behind it but sky, with a light embroidery of trees; for it occupied the highest “brae head” in the neighbourhood, and in a more level country would have been described as situated on the top of a hill. Before it lay the whole course of the Esk, not all visible indeed, narrowing here and there between high banks, now and then hiding itself under the foliage, or capriciously turning a corner out of sight,--but always lending to the landscape that charm of life which water more than anything imparts to the inanimate world around. Cliffs and trees, and bits of bold brown bank, and soft stretches of greensward, all took a certain significance, and explained their _raison d’être_ by the river. The houses, too, from the dignified roofs of Rosscraig lower down the stream, showing their turrets, which little Violet supposed to be made of gold, between the clouds of trees--down to the square white houses of the paper-mill people on the other side, and here and there rough red tiles of a cottage of earlier date--were all harmonised by the river, which was the link which held them together. The usual geographical