"I'll revise that condescendence, and decern as accords," replied the laird, turning half round, to deliver himself of this mystical response. Then, resuming his progress, he was soon quit of the house, but not of the premises altogether, as was made manifest by a certain awkward interruption he met with before he had gone fifty yards. This was by a huge watch-dog, within the reach of whose chain one of the laird's lee lurches had brought him. Availing himself of the tempting advantage, the dog bolted, with a growl like that of a tiger, out of his wooden tenement, and, in a twinkling had the laird fast by the cloak, at which he commenced tugging with a violence which all its owner's efforts to counteract, by dragging himself in an opposite direction, could not overcome. Finding his exertions this way vain, and that a continuance of them would only insure the dissolution of his favourite outer garment, the laird turned upon his enemy, and, making some hits at him with his stick--"Desert the diet, ye brute; an' bring yer action in a regular form, an' accordin to law," he exclaimed, abruptly; and, by a dexterous movement, avoiding a snap at his leg, which the dog at this moment made--"Tak yer mittimus," he said, discharging another violent blow at the animal, which, however, had only the effect of increasing the latter's ferocity; for the dog now fairly leaped on his back, and seizing him by the neck of the coat behind, laid him, in an instant, prostrate in the mud. Having thus got the laird down, the dog, without offering him further injury, planted a fore-leg on either side of him, and, with his muzzle within half-an-inch of his face, commenced a series of growls, "not loud, but deep," that indicated anything but a friendly feeling towards his victim. Even in these circumstances, however, the laird's deep sense of the propriety of proceeding strictly "according to law" in all cases did not desert him. Looking steadily at the dog, he thus addressed him, in a clear, loud voice, imitating, as nearly as he could, the tones of a court crier:-- "I, John Guidyill, Laird o' Scouthercakes, summon, warn, and charge you, Skimclean's dug, to compear before His Majesty's justices o' the peace for the shire o' Renfrew, within their ordinary court-place, in Paisley, upon the 12th day o' October, 1817, at eleven o'clock forenoon, to answer, at the instance o' the above-designed Laird o' Scouthercakes, for an illegal assault made on the said laird's person, on the nicht o' the 2d day o' October, in the aforesaid year, or in the month o' September preceding, or the month o' November following. This I do on the 2d day o' October, one thoosan aucht hunner an' seventeen years, with certification as effeirs. John Guidyill.--There, noo, ye're regularly ceeted," added the laird; "sae desert the diet for the present; an' see that ye mak punctual compearance in the hoor o' cause."