"I'll learn him to put notions into my laddie's head!" cried Todd of Todston.
"We'll empty the auld carle's meal-ark, I'se warrant!" said Mickle Andrew.
"Faith, lads, we'll get a decent drinking, caird-playin' minister in young Calmsough--yin that's no' feared o' a guid braid oath!" cried Chryston of Commonel.
And I was trembling in all my limbs lest they should see me. So before I dared rise I heard the clatter of their horses' feet down the road. My heart failed me, for I thought that in an hour they would be in Edinburgh town and have audience of my lady, and so prefer their request before me.
Yet I was not to be daunted, and went limping onward as best I might. Nor had I gone far when, in a beautiful hollow, by the lintels of an inn that had for a sign a burn-trout over the door, I came upon their horses.
"Warm be your wames and dry your thrapples!" quoth I to myself; "an', gin the brew be nappy and the company guid at the Fisher's Tryst, we'll bring back the gospel yet to the holms of the Rowantree, or I am sair mista'en!"
So when I got to my lady's house, speering at every watchman, it was still mirk night. But in the shadow of an archway I sat me down to wait, leaning my breast against the sharp end of my staff lest sleep should overcome me. The hope of recommending the godly man, Mr. Campbell, to my lady kept me from feeling hungered. Yet I was fain in time to set about turning my pockets inside out. In them I searched for crumblings of my cakes, and found a good many, so that I was not that ill off.
As soon as it was day, and I saw that the servants of the house began to stir, I went over and knocked soundly upon the great brass knocker. A man with a cropped black poll and powder sifted among it, came and ordered me away. I asked when my lady would be up.
Now, I knew that this would never do for me, because the farmer bodies would certainly arrive before that, drunk or sober. So I told Crophead that he had better go and tell his mistress that there was one come post-haste all the way from the parish of Rowantree, where her property lay, and that the messenger must instantly speak with her.
But Crophead swore at me, and churlishly bade me begone at that hour of the morning. But since he would have slammed the door on me, I set my staff in the crevice and hoised it open again. Ay, and would have made my oak rung acquaint with the side of his ill-favoured head, too, had not a woman's voice cried down the stair to know the reason of the disturbance.
