“Hola, Jock!” he cried.  “I didn’t thought anybody was there.  I am in what you call the high spirits to-night.”

“So it seems!” said I, in my blunt fashion.  “You may not feel so merry when my friend Jim Horscroft comes back to-morrow.”

“Ah! he comes back to-morrow, does he?  And why should I not feel merry?

“Because, if I know the man, he will kill you.”

“Ta, ta, ta!” cried de Lapp.  “I see that you know of our marriage.  Edie has told you.  Jim may do what he likes.”

“You have given us a nice return for having taken you in.”

“My good fellow,” said he, “I have, as you say, given you a very nice return.  I have taken Edie from a life which is unworthy of her, and I have connected you by marriage with a noble family.  However, I have some letters which I must write to-night, and the rest we can talk over to-morrow, when your friend Jim is here to help us.”

He stepped towards the door.

“And this was whom you were awaiting at the peel tower!” I cried, seeing light suddenly.

“Why, Jock, you are becoming quite sharp,” said he, in a mocking tone; and an instant later I heard the door of his room close and the key turn in the lock.

I thought that I should see him no more that night; but a few minutes later he came into the kitchen, where I was sitting with the old folk.

“Madame,” said he, bowing down with his hand over his heart, in his own queer fashion, “I have met with much kindness in your hands, and it shall always be in my heart.  I didn’t thought I could have been so happy in the quiet country as you have made me.  You will accept this small souvenir; and you also, sir, you will take this little gift, which I have the honour to make to you.”

He put two little paper packets down upon the table at their elbows, and then, with three more bows to my mother, he walked from the room.

Her present was a brooch, with a green stone set in the middle and a dozen little shining white ones all round it.  We had never seen such things before, and did not know how to set a name to them; but they told us afterwards at Berwick that the big one was an emerald and the others were diamonds, and that they were worth much more than all the lambs we had that spring.  My dear old mother has been gone now this many a year, but that bonny brooch sparkles at the neck of my eldest daughter when she goes out into company; and I never look at it that I do not see the keen eyes and the long thin nose and the cat’s whiskers of our lodger at West Inch.  As to my father, he had a fine gold watch with a double case; and a proud man was he as he sat with it in the palm of his hand, his ear stooping to hearken to the tick.  I do not know which was best pleased, and they would talk of nothing but what de Lapp had given them.

“He’s given you something more,” said I at last.

“What then, Jock?” asked father.