"But it's her beauty--it's her extraordinary beauty--that's the wonder, and that I hear everybody speakin' aboot," said Willie. "I wad gie the price o' sax fat hens to see her. Could ye no get me a glisk o' her ony way, just for ae minute?" "Didna I tell ye before that she's no at hame?" said the old dame, threatening again to get restive on Willie's hands. "Od, so ye did; I forgot," said Mr. Buchanan, affecting obliviousness of the fact. "Whaur may she be noo?" he added in his simplest and _couthiest_ manner. "Wad ye like to ken?" replied the old lady with a satirical sneer. "'Deed wad I; and there's mae than me wad like to ken," replied Willie; "and them that wad pay handsomely for the information." "Really," said the old dame, with a continuation of the same sneer, and long ere this guessing what Willie was driving at. "And wha may they be noo, if I may speer?" "They're gey kenspeckled," replied Mr. Buchanan; "but that doesna matter. If ye canna, or winna tell me whaur Mistress Craig is, could ye no gie's a bit inklin' o' whan ye expect her hame?" "No; but I'll gie ye a bit inklin o' whan ye'll walk oot o' this," said the old woman, rising angrily from her seat; "and that's this minute, or I'll set the dug on ye. Hisk, hisk--Teeger, Teeger!" And a huge black dog came bouncing out of the house, and took up a position right in front of Willie; wagging his tail, as if in anticipation of a handsome treat in the way of worrying that worthy. "Gude sake, woman," said Willie, rising in great alarm from his seat, and edging towards the outer gate--"What's a' this for? Ye wadna set that brute on a Christian cratur, wad ye?" "Wadna I? Ye'd better no try me, frien', but troop aff wi' ye. Teeger," she added, with a significant look. The dog understood it, and, springing on Willie, seized him by one of the skirts of his coat, which, with one powerful tug, he at once separated from the body. Pressed closely upon by both the dog and his mistress, Willie keeping, however, his face to the foe, now retreated towards the gate, when, just at the moment of his making his exit, the old lady, raising her staff, hit him a parting blow, which, taking effect on the bridge of his nose, immediately enlarged the dimensions of that organ, besides drawing forth a copious stream of claret. In the next instant the gate was shut and locked in the sufferer's face. "Confound ye, ye auld limmer," shouted Willie furiously, and shaking his fist through the bars of the gate as he spoke, "if I had ye here on the outside o' the yett, as ye're in the in, if I wadna baste the auld hide o' ye. But my name's no Willie Buchanan if I dinna gar ye rue this job yet, some way or anither."