He laughed, and Cosmo laughed too--but grimly and out of tune. Then the laird told him that just that piece of the road was an improvement of his own, and had cost him a good bit of blasting: it used to cross the stream twice before it got to the yard-gate. He hardly thought, he said, that his lordship would like to have to restore it; for, besides the expense, it would cost him so much out of one of his best fields. In the meantime they must contrive how to connect themselves with that part of the road which he dared not touch. The worst of it was that there was no longer any direct communication across the fields with James Gracie’s cottage. To follow the road was to make a tremendous round. Grizzie being already in bed when Cosmo came home, learned nothing that night of the evil news. At break of day Cosmo was up to see what could be done, and found that a few steps cut in the rocky terraces of the garden would bring one with ease to the road. He set about it immediately, and before breakfast-time had finished the job. The rage and indignation of Grizzie when she learned what had been done, far surpassed Cosmo’s, and served to secure him from any return of the attack. The flood of poetic abuse that she poured out seemed inexhaustible, sweeping along with it tale after tale to the prejudice of “that leein’ Lick-my-loof.” But, poetic as was her speech, not a single rime did she utter for the space of an hour during which she thus unloaded her heart. “Ay!” she concluded, and thereafter sank into smouldering silence, “there was a futpath there afore ye was born, laird, blast or no blast; an’ to that I can fess them ’at can beir testimony, ane o’ them bein’ nane ither nor Jeames Gracie himsel’, wha’s ten lang years aheid o’ yer lairdship! an’ lat me see man or dog ’at ’ll haud me ohn taen my wull o’ my richts intil ’t! They canna hang me, and for less I carena.” The schoolmaster was at length fit to resume his labours, and about a week after the event just recorded, Cosmo ceased to attend the school in his stead. CHAPTER XLIII. GRIZZIE’S RIGHTS. In those days Mistress Gracie fell sick, and though for a while neither husband nor grand-daughter thought seriously of her ailment, it proved more than her age, worn with labour, could endure, and she began to sink. Then Grizzie must go and help nurse her, for, Cosmo being at home all day long, the laird could well enough spare her.