“Leave her alone, Mr. Warlock, if you don’t want to have the worst of it,” said his lordship, trying to laugh. “But seriously, laird,” he went on, “it is not neighbourly to treat me like this. Oblige me by giving orders to your people not to trespass on my property. I have paid my money for it, and must be allowed to do with it as I please.” “My lord,” returned the laird, “I have not given, and will not give you the smallest annoyance in my own person.--I hope yet to possess the earth,” he interjected, half unconsciously, to himself, but aloud. “But--” “Hey! hey!” said his lordship, thinking the man was sending his reason after his property. “But,” continued the laird, “I cannot interfere with the rights of my neighbours. If Grizzie says she has a right of way--and I think very probably she knows what she is about--I have no business to interfere.” “Confound your cant!” cried his lordship. “You care no more for your neighbours than I do. You only want to make yourself unpleasant to me. Show me the way out, and be damned.” “My lord,” said Cosmo, “if you weren’t an old man, I would show you the quickest way out! How dare you speak so to a man like my father!” “Hold your tongue, you young fool! _You_ stand up for your father! --idling about at home and eating him up! Why don’t you list? With your education you could work your way up. I warn you, if you fall into my hands, I will not spare you. The country will be better to live in when such as you are scarcer.” “Cosmo,” said his father, “do not answer him. Show his lordship the way out, and let him go.” As they went through the garden, Lord Lick-my-loof sought to renew the conversation, but Cosmo maintained a stern silence, and his lordship went home incensed more than ever with the contumacious paupers. But the path in which Grizzie gloried as the work of her own feet, hardened and broadened, and that although she herself had very little _foot_ in it any more. For the following week Mistress Gracie died; and the day after she was buried, the old cotter came to the laird, and begged him to yield, if he pleased, the contested point, and part with the bit of land he occupied. For all the neighbours knew his lordship greatly coveted it, though none of them were aware what a price he had offered for it. “Ye see, sir,” he said, “noo ’at _she’s_ gane, it maitters naething to Aggie or me whaur we are or what comes o’ ’s.” “But wadna she hae said the same, gien it had been you ’at was gane, Jeames?” asked the laird. “’Deed wad she! She was aye a’ thing for ither fowk, an’ naething for hersel’! The mair cause she sud be considered the noo!” “An’ ca’ ye that considerin’ her--to du the minute she’s gane the thing wad hae grieved her by ordinar’ whan she was wi’ ye?” “Whan we war thegither,” returned Jeames with solemnity, “there was a heap o’ things worth a hantle; noo ’at we’re pairted there’s jist nearhan’ as mony ’at’s no worth a strae.”