‘I have given a very good account of you,’ said she, ’which I hope you may justify.  I told them there was nothing against you beyond the fact that you were put to the haw (if that is the right word) for debt.’

‘I pray God you have the expression incorrectly, ma’am,’ said I.  ’I do not give myself out for a person easily alarmed; but you must admit there is something barbarous and mediaeval in the sound well qualified to startle a poor foreigner.’

’It is the name of a process in Scots Law, and need alarm no honest man,’ said she.  ’But you are a very idle-minded young gentleman; you must still have your joke, I see:  I only hope you will have no cause to regret it.’

’I pray you not to suppose, because I speak lightly, that I do not feel deeply,’ said I.  ’Your kindness has quite conquered me; I lay myself at your disposition, I beg you to believe, with real tenderness; I pray you to consider me from henceforth as the most devoted of your friends.’

‘Well, well,’ she said, ’here comes your devoted friend the drover.  I’m thinking he will be eager for the road; and I will not be easy myself till I see you well off the premises, and the dishes washed, before my servant-woman wakes.  Praise God, we have gotten one that is a treasure at the sleeping!’

The morning was already beginning to be blue in the trees of the garden, and to put to shame the candle by which I had breakfasted.  The lady rose from table, and I had no choice but to follow her example.  All the time I was beating my brains for any means by which I should be able to get a word apart with Flora, or find the time to write her a billet.  The windows had been open while I breakfasted, I suppose to ventilate the room from any traces of my passage there; and, Master Ronald appearing on the front lawn, my ogre leaned forth to address him.

‘Ronald,’ she said, ‘wasn’t that Sim that went by the wall?’

I snatched my advantage.  Right at her back there was pen, ink, and paper laid out.  I wrote:  ‘I love you’; and before I had time to write more, or so much as to blot what I had written, I was again under the guns of the gold eyeglasses.

‘It’s time,’ she began; and then, as she observed my occupation, ‘Umph!’ she broke off.  ‘Ye have something to write?’ she demanded.

‘Some notes, madam,’ said I, bowing with alacrity.

‘Notes,’ she said; ‘or a note?’

’There is doubtless some finesse of the English language that I do not comprehend,’ said I.

’I’ll contrive, however, to make my meaning very plain to ye, Mosha le Viscount,’ she continued.  ’I suppose you desire to be considered a gentleman?’

‘Can you doubt it, madam?’ said I.

’I doubt very much, at least, whether you go to the right way about it,’ she said.  ’You have come here to me, I cannot very well say how; I think you will admit you owe me some thanks, if it was only for the breakfast I made ye.  But what are you to me?  A waif young man, not so far to seek for looks and manners, with some English notes in your pocket and a price upon your head.  I am a lady; I have been your hostess, with however little will; and I desire that this random acquaintance of yours with my family will cease and determine.’