"I will try what I can," said the farmer. "And let me know by some messenger who can ride as fast as I can." Then adding, "Gilderoy was saved by a _brown_ mouse, which gnawed the string by which the key of the jail door of Forfar hung on a nail, whereby the key fell to the ground, and was pulled by him through an opening at the bottom. Heard you ever the story?" "No." "But it's true, nevertheless. What would you say if a _white_ mouse, or two of them, should save the life of your wife?" "I would say it was wonderful," replied the farmer, with eyes a-goggled by amazement. "And so would I," answered Mr. M----, as he put the rowels into the side of his horse and began a hard trot, which he would not slacken till he was at the Cowgate port, and not even then, for he made his way generally through the streets of the town with equal rapidity, and always the safer that he was the "fresher." On arriving at his office he sat down, and, without apparently any premeditation, unless what he had indulged in during his trot, wrote off with his usual rapidity four letters to the following effect:--"Dear Sir,--As agent for Mrs. S----, who now lies in our jail on a charge of murder, I request you will endeavour to find some trace of a woman who goes through the country with a cage and two white mice. Grave suspicions attach to her, as the person who administered the poison, and I wish your energies to be employed in aiding me to search her out." The letters were directed to agents in Arbroath, Forfar, Kirriemuir, and Montrose, and immediately committed to a clerk to be taken to the post-office, with a good-natured laugh on the lips of the writer--and, within the teeth, the little monologue--"The wrinkled skin easily conceals a scar."