“Well, please to sit down and join us,” Mrs. Ramsay said.  “It is bad manners, indeed, to keep you talking while the meat is getting cold on the table.  When you have finished, it will be time enough to question you.”

While the meal was going on, however, many questions were asked as to Colonel Jamieson, the regiment, and its officers.

“As soon as matters are more settled,” the merchant said, “I will give myself a holiday, and Janet and I will go and spend a few days with Jock.  Many of the names of the officers are well known to me, and two or three of the captains were at Glasgow College with Jock and myself.  It will be like old times, to have four or five of us talking over the wild doings we had together.”

The supper over, the children were sent off to bed.  Allan Ramsay lit a long pipe.  A bottle of wine and two glasses were placed on the table, and Mrs. Ramsay withdrew, to see after domestic matters, and prepare a room for Charlie.

“Now, lad, tell me all about it,” Allan Ramsay said.  “Jock tells me you are here on a mission, which he would leave it to yourself to explain; but it is no business of mine, and, if you would rather keep it to yourself, I will ask no questions.”

“There is no secret about it, as far as you are concerned, Mr. Ramsay, for it is to you and to other merchants here that I have come to talk it over;” and he then went fully into the subject.

The Scotchman sat, smoking his pipe in silence, for some minutes after he had concluded.

“We do not much meddle with politics here.  We have neither voice nor part in the making of kings or of laws, and, beyond that we like to have a peace-loving king, it matters little to us whom the diet may set up over us.  If we were once to put the tips of our fingers into Polish affairs, we might give up all thought of trade.  They are forever intriguing and plotting, except when they are fighting; and it would be weary work to keep touch with it all, much less to take part in it.  It is our business to buy and to sell, and so that both parties come to us, it matters little; one’s money is as good as the other.  If I had one set of creditors deeper in my books than another, I might wish their party to gain the day, for it would, maybe, set them up in funds, and I might get my money; but, as it is, it matters little.  There is not a customer I have but is in my debt.  Money is always scarce with them; for they are reckless and extravagant, keeping a horde of idle loons about them, spending as much money on their own attire and that of their wives as would keep a whole Scotch clan in victuals.  But, if they cannot pay in money, they can pay in corn or in cattle, in wine or in hides.

“I do not know which they are fondest of—­plotting, or fighting, or feasting; and yet, reckless as they are, they are people to like.  If they do sell their votes for money, it is not a Scotchman that should throw it in their teeth; for there is scarce a Scotch noble, since the days of Bruce, who has not been ready to sell himself for English gold.  Our own Highlanders are as fond of fighting as the Poles, and their chiefs are as profuse in hospitality, and as reckless and spendthrift.