How or in what way this fierce struggle between the two lawyers would have terminated, we cannot tell, as it was not permitted to attain its own natural conclusion. It was interrupted. At the moment that the laird had renewed his efforts on Skimclean's neckcloth, which the reader will observe was doing the duty of a bowstring, the wife of the latter rushed into the apartment, exclaiming-- "The Lord hae a care o' me! what's this o't?--what's this o't? What are ye fechtin aboot, ye auld fules?" "A case o' hamesookin, Jenny--a decided case o' hamesookin," shouted Skimclean. "A man attacked an' abused in his ain hoose. That's hamesookin, an' severely punishable by law." "Tuts, confound yer law?--mind reason and common sense," said Skimclean's wife, seizing the laird by the coattails, and dragging him off her prostrate husband, of whose _penchant_ for law she had long been perfectly sick. "Mind reason an' common sense, an' let alane law to them it belangs to." Whether it was that the combatants had expended all the present pugnacity of their natures in the contest which had just been brought to a close, or that the soft tones of Mrs Drumwhussle's voice had suddenly allayed their ire, we know not; but certain it is, that the faces of both the lawyers exhibited, all at once, and at the same instant, a trait of amiable relaxation, indicative of a return of friendly feeling, together with something like a sense of regret, and perhaps shame for what had passed. It was then, under this change of sentiment, that Skimclean replied, laughingly, to his wife-- "Weel, weel, gudewife, if the laird here's willin, we'll close the record, an' let byganes be byganes." "Wi' a' my heart," said the former; "for it's a case that'll no stan law. Sae we'll just revise the condescendence, an' tak better care for time to come. This wark's no accordin to law." "Neither law, nor reason, nor sense," said Mrs Drumwhussle, who was a rattling, but good-natured, motherly sort of woman. "Ye're jist a pair o' auld fules--that's what ye are. Noo, laird," she continued, as she turned round to that worthy--who presented rather an odd spectacle; his person exhibiting, at this moment, a strange combination of ludicrous points--extreme tallness, extreme thinness, extreme drunkenness, extreme snuffiness, if we may use the expression, and a countenance marked and mangled in a manner that was absolutely hideous to look upon, although the application of a little simple water would have shown that the said countenance was not, after all, very seriously damaged--"noo, laird," said Mrs Drumwhussle, laying her hand kindly on the shoulder of her husband's guest, "ye'll jist stap awa hame, like a guid honest man as ye are, an' you an' the gudeman 'll meet the morn, whan ye're baith yersels, an' ye'll baith be as guid freens as ever--maybe a hantle better; for I've kent folk that never could understan ane anither till they had a guid fecht."