CHAPTER XXXV.

A DAMNATORY DOCUMENT.

MUNGO took the coat into the castle kitchen, the true arcanum of Doom, where he and Annapla solved the domestic problems that in later years had not been permitted to disturb the mind of the master or his daughter. An enormous fireplace, arched like a bridge, and poorly enough fed nowadays compared with its gluttony in those happier years of his continual bemoaning, when plenty kept the spit perpetually at work, if it were only for the good of the beggars who blackened the road from the Lowlands, had a handful of peat in its centre to make the yawning orifice the more pathetic to eyes that had seen the flames leap there. Everywhere the evidence of the old abundant days-the rusting spit itself, the idle battery of cuisine, long rows of shining covers. Annapla, who was assumed to be true tutelary genius of these things, but in fact was beholden to the martial manikin of Fife for inspiration and aid with the simplest of ragouts, though he would have died sooner than be suspected of the unsoldierly art of cookery,-Annapla was in one of her trances. Her head was swathed mountainously in shawls; her wild, black, lambent eyes had the look of distant contemplation.

"Lord keep's!" said Mungo, entering, "what are ye doverin' on noo? Wauken up, ye auld bitch, and gie this coat a dicht. D'ye ken wha's ocht it? It

belangs to a gentleman that's no' like noo to get but this same and the back-o'-my-haun'-to-ye oot o' Doom Castle."

She took the coat and brushed it in a lethargy, with odd, unintelligible chanting.

"Nane o' your warlock canticles!" cried Mungo. "Ye gied the lassie to the man that cam' withouten boots-sorrow be on the bargain! And if it's castin' a spell on the coat ye are, I'll raither clean't mysel'." With that he seized the garment from her and lustily applied himself.

"A bonny-like hostler-wife ye'll mak'," said he. "And few'll come to Mungo Byde's hostelry if his wife's to be eternally in a deevilish dwaam, concocting Hielan' spells when she should be stirring at the broth. No' that I can blame ye muckle for a want o' the uptak' in what pertains to culinairy airts; for what hae ye seen here since ye cam' awa' frae the rest o' the drove in Arroquhar but lang kail, and oaten brose, and mashlum bannocks? Oh! sirs, sirs! I've seen the day!"

Annapla emerged from her trance, and ogled him with an amusing admiration.

"And noo it's a' by wi't; it's the end o' the auld ballant," went on the little man. "I've kent auld Doom in times o' rowth and splendour, and noo I'm spared to see't rouped, the laird a dyvour and a hameless wanderer ower the face o' the earth. He's gaun abroad, he tells me, and ettles to sit doon aboot Dunkerque in France. It's but fair, maybe, that whaur his forbears squandered he should gang wi' the little that's to the fore. I mind o' his faither gaun awa' at the last hoved up, a fair Jeshurun, his een like to loup oot o' his heid wi' fat, and comin' back a pooked craw frae the dicing and the drink, nae doot among the scatter-brained white cockades. Whatna shilpit man's this that Leevie's gotten for her new jo? As if I dinna see through them! The tawpie's ta'en the gee at the Factor because he played yon ploy wi' his lads frae the Maltland barracks, and

this Frenchy's ower the lugs in love wi' her, I can see as plain as Cowal, though it's a shameless thing to say't. He's gotten gey far ben in a michty short time. Ye're aye saying them that come unsent for should sit unserved; but wha sent for this billy oot o' France? and wha has been sae coothered up as he has since he cam' here? The Baron doesnae ken the shifts that you and me's been put to for to save his repitation. Mony a lee I tauld doon there i' the clachan to soother them oot o' butter and milk and eggs, and a bit hen at times; mony a time I hae gi'en my ain denner to thae gangrel bodies frae Glencroe sooner nor hae them think there was nae rowth o' vivers whaur they never were sent awa’ empty-haunded afore. I aye keepit my he'rt up wi' the notion that him doon-by the coat belangs to wad hae made a match o't, and saved us a' frae beggary. But there's an end o' that, sorry am I. And sorry may you be, ye auld runt, to hear't, for he's been the guid enough friend to me; and there wad never hae been the Red Sodger Tavern for us if it wasnae for his interest in a man that has aye kep' up the airmy."

Annapla seemed to find the dialect of Fife most pleasing and melodious. She listened to his monologue with approving smiles, and, sitting on a stool, cowered within the arch, warming her hands at the apology for a flame.

"Wha the deevil could hae tauld her it was the lad himsel' was here that nicht wi' his desperate chiels frae the barracks? It couldna' be you, for I didna' tell ye mysel' for fear ye wad bluitter it oot and spoil his chances. She kent onyway, and it was for no ither reason she gie'd him the route, unless -unless she had a notion o' the Frenchman frae the first glisk o' him. There's no accoontin' for tastes: clap a bunnet on a tawtie-bogle, wi' a cock to the ae side that's kin' o' knowin', and ony woman'll jump at his neck, though ye micht pap peas through the place whaur his wame should be. The Frenchy's

no' my taste onyway; and noo, there's Sim! Just think o' Sim gettin' the dirty gae-bye frae a glaikit lassie hauf his age; and no' his equal in the three parishes, wi' a leg to tak' the ee o' a hale dancin'school, and auld Knapdale's money comin' till him whenever Knapdale's gane, and I'm hearin' he's in the deid-thraws already. Ill fa' the day fotch the Frenchy! The race o' them never brocht ocht in my generation to puir Scotland worth a bodle, unless it micht be a new fricassee to fyle a stamach wi'. I'm fair bate to ken what this Coont wants here. 'Drimdarroch,' says he, but that's fair rideeculous, unless it was the real auld bauld Drimdarroch, and that's nae ither than Doom. I winna wonder if he heard o' Leevie ere ever he left the France."

Annapla began to drowse at the fire. He saw her head nod, and came round with the coat in his hand to confirm his suspicion that she was about to fall asleep. Her eyes were shut.

"Wauken up, Luckie!" he cried, disgusted at this absence of appreciation. "What ails the body? Ye're into your damnable dwaam again. There's them that's gowks enough to think ye're seein' Sichts, when it's neither mair nor less than he'rt-sick laziness, and I was ance ane o' them mysel'. Ye hinnae as muckle o' the Sicht as wad let ye see when Leevie was makin' a gowk o' ye to gar ye hang oot signals for her auld jo. A bonny-like brewster-wife ye'll mak', I warrant!" He tapped her, not unkindly, on the head with the back of his brush, and brought her to earth again.

"Are ye listenin', ye auld runt?" said he. "I'm goin' doon to the toon i' the aifternoon wi' this braw coat and money for Monsher's inn accoont, and if ye're no' mair wide-awake by that time, there's de'il the cries'll gae in wi' auld MacNair."

The woman laughed, not at all displeased with herself nor with her rough admirer, and set to some trivial office. Mungo was finished with the coat;

he held it out at arm's-length, admiring its plenitude of lace, and finally put off his own hodden garment that he might try on the Chamberlain's.

"God!" said he, "it fits me like an empty alecask. I thocht the Coont looked gey like a galoshan in't, but I maun be the bonny doo mysel'. And I'm no' that wee neither, for it's ticht aboot the back."

Annapla thought her diminutive admirer adorable; she stood raptly gazing on him, with her dishclout dripping on the floor.

"I wonder if there's no'. a note or twa o' the New Bank i' the pouches," said Mungo, and began to search. Something in one of the pockets rustled to the touch, and with a face of great expectancy he drew forth what proved to be a letter. The seal was broken, there was neither an address nor the superscription of the writer; the handwriting was a faint Italian, betokening a lady, there was no delicate scrupulosity about the domestic, and the good Mungo unhesitatingly indulged himself.

"It's no' exactly a note,” said he, contracting his brows above the document. Not for the first time Annapla regretted her inability to read, as she craned over his shoulder to see what evidently created much astonishment in her future lord.

"Weel, that bates a'!" he cried when he had finished, and he turned, visibly flushing, even through his apple-red complexion, to see Annapla at his shoulder.

"It's a guid thing the Sicht's nae use for English write," said he, replacing the letter carefully in the pocket whence it had come. "This'll gae back to himsel', and naebody be nane the wiser o't for Mungo Byde."

For half an hour he busied himself with aiding Annapla at the preparation of dinner, suddenly become silent as a consequence of what the letter had revealed to him, and then he went out to prepare his boat for his trip to town.