Having arranged this to his own content, he stalked majestically into an inn--without stopping to notice the sign which projected angularly over the door, bearing the representation of a ship in full sail, among emerald waves, with moon-rakers and sky-scrapers ingeniously mixed up with the indigo clouds above--and stoutly called for a pint of porter and a biscuit, to take the edge off his appetite. This inn rejoiced not in a landlord; he that _was_ the landlord had, some twelve years before, taken himself off to "that undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveller returns;" and his widow had not been lucky enough to meet with another ready and willing to let himself become entangled with her in the meshes of matrimony. The waiters who had, in her husband's time, been wont to serve the customers, had either died out, or gone to other and better situations, and left her with one solitary maid of all work--the same who had officiated as barmaid to the inn for fifteen years. This maid of all work--Kirsty by name--was a tall, hard-featured woman, of--by her own acknowledgment--two-and-forty; not very tidy in her adornment, nor very bewitching in her manner. She it was who brought Mr. Andrew Micklewhame the pint of porter and the biscuit. "I suppose, my dear!" said Andrew--(he had been a gay deceiver in his youth, and, ever since that period, the phrase, "my dear!" had stuck to him, and always when speaking to a female did he use it)--"I suppose, my dear," continued he, "I can have tea, and a beef-steak, or something of that kind, to it, in"--(here he stopped, and looked at his watch, from which he ascertained that it was then half-past four o'clock)--"in an hour and a half; and, as I purpose staying here to-night, I should like a bed. Will you arrange this for me?" "Ye can easily get yer tea, sir," said the woman of forty-two, looking pleased at being addressed, "my dear;" "but, as for the bed, unless ye like to sleep in a dooble-bedded room, we canna gie ye accomodation. The lad that sleeps in ane o' the beds, is a decent sort o' a callant. We dinna ken much aboot him though; for he only comes here at nicht for his bed; and in the mornings, after his breakfast, awa' he gangs, and we never sees his face till nicht again; except upon the Sundays, when he aye has a pairty o' braw leddies an' gentlemen to dinner wi' him. He has leeved that way for a fortnicht or three weeks; an' my mistress hasna been the woman to ask him for a penny. Fegs! I'm thinkin' she has taen a notion o' the callant. What he is or what he diz we dinna ken, an' naebody can tell us." "Mysterious being!" inwardly ejaculated (as the novelists' phrase goes) Mr. Micklewhame; then turning to Kirsty, with an inquiring look, he said--"Is he genteel in appearance? of good address? of pleasing manner? Is he"----