He had procured a copy of an old plan of the property, and therein discovered, as he had expected and hoped, that that part of the road from the glen of the Warlock which passed the gate of the castle, had been made by the present laird only about thirty years before; whereupon--whether he was within his legal rights or not, I do not know, but everybody knew the laird could not go to law--he gave orders that it should be broken up from the old point of departure, and a dry dyke built across the gate. But the persons to whom the job was committed, either ashamed or afraid, took advantage of an evening on which Cosmo had a class for farm-labourers, to do the work after dark; whence it came that, plodding homewards without a suspicion, he found himself as he approached the gate all at once floundering among stones and broken ground, and presently brought up standing, a man built out from his own house by a mushroom wall--the entrance gone which seemed to him as old as the hills around it, for it was older than his earthly life. With a great shove he hurled half the height of it over, and walking in, appeared before his father in such a rage as bewildered and troubled him far more than any insolence of Lord Lick-my-loof could have done. “The scoundrel!” cried Cosmo; “I should like to give him a good drubbing--only he’s an old man! But I’ll make him repent it--and heartily, too!” “Cosmo, my boy,” said the old man, “you are meddling with what does not belong to you.” “I know it’s your business, father, not mine; but--” “It’s no more my business than yours, my son! ‘_Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord._’--An’ the best o’ ’t is,” he went on, willing, by a touch of humour in the truth he had to speak, to help turn the tide of Cosmo’s wrath, “he’ll tak’ no more than’s guid for the sinner; whereas yersel’, Cosmo, i’ the tune ye’re in noo, wad damn puir auld Lick-my-loof for ever and ever! Man, he canna hurt me to the worth o’ sic a heap o’ firin’!” Then changing his tone to absolute seriousness, “Min’ ye tu, Cosmo,” he went on, “’at the maister never threatent but aye left the thing, whatever it was, to him ’at judges richteously. Ye want nothing but fair play, my son, an’ whether ye get it frae Lick-my-loof or no, there’s ane winna haud it frae ye. Ye s’ get it, my son; ye s’ get it! The maister ’ll hae a’ thing set richt at the lang last; an’ gien _he_ binna in a hurry, we may weel bide. For mysel’, the man has smitten me upo’ the tae cheek, an’ may hae the tither to lat drive at whan he likes. It’s no worth liftin’ my auld airm to haud aff the smack.”