Rab Bethune's Double or Life's long battle won, etc

Front matter

RAB BETHUNE'S DOUBLE BOOKS BY EDWARD GARRETT (ISABELLA FVVIE MAYO). AT ANY COST. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 3s. 6<t. Cheap edition, cloth, 2S. 6d. BY STILL WATERS. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 2s. 6d. Cheap edition, paper covers, is. Cloth, is. 6d. ONE NEW YEAR'S NIGHT, and Other Stories. Illustrated. Cloth, is. 6d. EQUAL TO THE OCCASION. Crown 8vo. Illustrated. 2S. 6d. THE MAQIC FLOWER-POT, and Other Stories. Crown 8vo. With Frontispiece. 2s. 6d. HER DAY OF SERVICE. Crown8vo. Illustrated. 2s. RAB BETHUNE'S DOUBLE, or Life's Long Battle Won. Extra crown 8vo- With 6 Etchings from copperplates of Border scenery. Price 6s. E&lnburob an. lonson OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER y. ,//,,-?<//■'■///,■// Rab Bethune's Double OR LIFE'S LONG BATTLE WON BY EDWARD GARRETT AUTHOR OF l,AT ANY COST," " BY STILL WATERS," etc., etc.

Illustrations etched on Casper by Has-well Donaldson EDINBURGH AND LONDON OLIPHANT ANDERSON & FERRIER TURNBULL AND SPEARS, PRINTERS. EDINBURGH Go C. A. M. MY BELOVED AND FAITHFUL FRIEND THROUGH THE STORMS AND THE SUNSHINE OF ALL MY LIFE CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE I. Among the Hills o' Tweed i II. An Old Ballad and a New Love Story . 9 III. An Empty Envelope . .26 IV. A Fossil and a Mind . , . 3S V. A Conqueror's Watchword ... 49 VI. "A Queer Little Body" ... 59 VII. An Unexpected Companion ... 69 VIII. A Beginning ..... So IX. The Deafness of Jean Haldane 90 X. Mystification ..... 99 XI. Mary Olrig in London. . . . 117 XII. An Eviction ..... 129 XIII. Lewis Crawford's Mother . . .138 XIV. Miss Clementina's Programme . . 154 XV. Clementina Kerr's Considerations . - 159 XVI. A Downhill Path . . . .167 vi CONTENTS.

CHAPTER PAGE XVII. Mary Olrig's Dark Days . . . 190 XVIII. Mary Olrig's Oracle . . . .211 XIX. A Little Providence .... 220 XX. Only a Miracle ..... 229 XXI. Honourable Proposals .... 237 XXII. Mrs Haldane gives a Name . . . 246 XXIII. A Bit out of the Arabian Nights . . 260 XXIV. Very Quietly ..... 277 XXV. Lewis and Mary ..... 286 XXVI. Moetia, the Mother of Lewis . . 297 XXVII. Mr Hedges' Memory .... 303 XXVIII. The Madness of Lewis Crawford . . 314 XXIX. Slow Tortures ..... 325 XXX. Marriage A la Mode .... 334 XXXI. The Envelope which was not Empty . 352 XXXII. Victory ...... LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. Jedburgh Abbey .... Frontispiece Kelso Abbey .... Page 59 Norham . . . . . ,, 7S Dryburgii . . . . . ,,115 Neidpath Castle . . . . ,, 247 Smailholm . . . . ,, 263 . RAB BETHUNE'S DOUBLE OK LIFE'S LONG BATTLE WON.

Chapter I. Among The Hills

o' TWEED. AN old-fashioned country chaise went slowly rumbling along a road among the low green hills of Roxburghshire. The chaise was driven by an elderly man, with stiff gait and high shoulders, suggestive of the plough. Its occupants were two middle-aged ladies, who had travelled in this fashion from Hawick, where they had left the train, but who, as the vehicle slowly passed through the environs of Jedburgh, looked to the right and to the left with the attentive interest of those revisiting a once familiar spot. When they had left the little town behind, losing the last sight of the Abbey as they pursued their leisurely way up a steep and winding road, the younger of the two broke silence. " I'd like fine to stop an' hae a crack at the Haldanes," she said, gazing wistfully at a rude old cottage, lying behind a field.

" Jean Haldane 's a real fine body, an' she 's ane o' the auld folk, who are aye growing mair interesting as they're aye getting fewer." " I'll not stop to please you, Bell," returned the elder, A -I with some asperity ; " there 's a time for everything, and the first moment that we come back to the glen, where our people were lairds for nigh two hundred years, isn't just the time to call on an old woman whose husband was a noted poacher." " Waes me, Helen ! sic a stour ye mak' about naething ! " retorted Miss Bell. " The Gibsons were weel respected, I know ; but I mak' no doubt their ain bit acres were gifted to them by Black Jock Horsburgh, because they lifted Northumbrian kine as lightly as I collect material for my stories. And, anyhow, I'd rather hae a crack wi' auld Jeanie than pay ane o' your fine calls on the Bethunes of Bethune — an' for a' that comes to, auld Bethune himsel' is nae that guid character," and Miss Bell gave a chuckling laugh.

" But hae your ain way, Helen, as ye ken ye will." " It is small wonder you don't care for calling on the Bethunes," returned Miss Helen, "for you can't speak ten words without bringing in one which no well-educated person of these days can understand ! You choose to talk as if you'd been brought up on a cairn among the heather." "Ye see I can do the Scotch real weel, Helen, an' I couldna manage to mak' as much o' the English even as you do," said the younger sister, quite innocently. " I'm just a gowk ootside o' my ain Scotch. I've naething to say in anither tongue, an' deed it seems to me, by your ways o' speech at your fashionable calls, that it 's the same wi' the rest o' ye. The cleverest advocate i' Edinburgh calls mine ' the grand auld Doric,' and folk are aye glad to set me talking, mair for its soun', that I ken fine, than for my sense !

" " There 's nothing to be proud of in the kind of notice those people always get who make fools of themselves for others' amusement," decided Miss Helen oracularly. But Bell's mind was diverted from the conversation. There were tears in her mischievous black eyes, as she gazed AMONG THE HILLS O' TWEED. 3 eagerly ahead while the chaise slowly turned a bend of the road, when she cried : — " Yon 's the bonnie white wa's of Polmoot Farm, gleaming frae the green hill like a white egg frae a nest. Eh, but it 's bonnie, bonnie, the auld hame; an' the auld days were happy, happy ! — D'ye mind the sang, Helen : — Oh, the auld house, the auld house ! What though the rooms were wee ! Oh, kind hearts were dwelling there, And bairnies fu' o' glee. and how it goes on — The voices sweet, the wee bit feet Aye rinnin' here and there, The merry shout — oh, whiles we greet To think we'll hear nae mair.

No' that Edinburgh 's sic a great city that we mightn't see Partrick and Janet often enough if they had the mind." "And so we do see them," put in Helen, irritably; " we've dined there twice this year." "Aye, Helen," said Miss Bell, "and we were askit again ; but ye kenned it was sma' use going when our new gowns were na finished. Anyhow, the merry shout we'll hear nae mair, for there 's nae merriment in either o' them, nor any shout either, except when Partrick's gout gars him screich ! Na, na ; gie me the days when cousin Janet kenned nae finery mair than a crimped frill on her pinnie, an' brither Partrick drank our birthday toasts in water frae the Fairies' Well." "When many people have to suffer loss and disgrace through their relations, we need not miscall ours because they have done well for themselves," said Miss Helen, severely.

" I'm not saying anything against Partrick," retorted Bell ; "he aye taks an interest in my wark, an' the last time I saw him he told me a fine story aboot a seceder minister that he 'd been keeping in mind for me for a month. But dinna let us talk about Partrick. Hark to the lintie : — Sweet's the laverock's note and lang, Lilting wildly up the glen, But aye to me he sings ae sang, " Will ye no come back again ? " " Leave off your little bits of nonsense and talk sense, Bell, do," interrupted Miss Helen. " Just look at the kirk and manse yonder, and all the flowers in the garden, and the greenhouse, and an aquarium in the parlour window. Those are the works the minister's heart is in, when he ought to be thinking of saving perishing souls ! " "Dearie me, Helen," laughed Miss Bell, "let the puir body get a bit pleasure into his life between whiles.

The Almighty Himsel' has managed sae that the lowe o' the pit doesna smoor all creation ! " " You are letting your nonsense-way of looking at things lead you into blasphemy, Bell," said Miss Helen. " I judge no man. But didn't the minister marry a village teacher, just because she had a pretty face, when he might have had Miss Grizel Elliot, with a good eighty thousands to her name, and more to follow. He'd have been worth a great deal more to his parish and to the kirk itself if he had considered what was his duty there, instead of seeking his own carnal pleasure." " 'Deed — and wha kens that Miss Grizel didna refuse him ? " asked Miss Bell. " He wadna rin to tell o' sic a thing — an' it isna an offer she would be like to boast of. It whiles puzzles one, Helen, that though ye're sae thankful to be an auld maid yoursel', ye never can believe that ony woman can refuse a man."

Miss Bell chuckled over the shrewdness of her own observation. " But tak' tent, Helen, for the Bairds are thick, thick with the minister and his AMONG THE HILLS O' TWEED. 5 wife, so we'll hae to mind our manners in speaking o' them." " Not being poetical like you, Bell, I have not two faces nor two tongues," said Miss Helen, stiffly. " I'll say what I think, and it will do Lesley Baird no harm to hear it." " And here 's the bit kirkyard," said Miss Bell, with sudden softening, "an' the bonnie gowans growing amang the green mools. Helen, d'ye no mind it was just sic a simmer's day as this when John Atchison was buried ? I aye think Lesley Baird has a wee luik o' her mither's brither." " And some of his upsetting ways into the bargain," said the ruthless Miss Helen ; " Lesley was pleasant enough to Mr Rab Bethune and Miss Lucy when they called at Eden haugh last year while I was there, yet she took a huft directly I thought it my duty to a motherless girl to warn her that when she was invited to Bethune it was not for the son to make love to, but just to amuse the daughter.

I told her that she ought to regard it as no end of advantage to see genteel ways, and that, if she took pains to make herself pleasant, she might even be invited, some day, to accompany Miss Lucy to London ; but she must never for get what the Bethunes would always remember, that she was but a schoolmaster's child at best, and, on her mother's side, the grand-daughter of our old Polmoot plough man." Miss Bell commented on this diatribe with sundry " loshies " and " waes me," delivered with an air of absence unusual to her, and presently proved what had really arrested her attention, by remarking, " But, Helen, I dinna ken hoo ye can ca' puir John Atchison upsetting, for he was aye owre glad to come up to Polmoot, leastways till a' of a suddent — na sae lang before he began to dwine. An' he was aye owre glad to see me when I went to see him whiles he was wearin' awa'."

" Aud so was his mother, I'll engage," said Miss Helen, coolly ; " for you never went empty-handed." Miss Bell gave a plump sigh. "I mind puir John Atchison seemed mair pleased wi' the bit posies o' gowans an' bluebells that I pu'ed for him frae the braeside, than even wi' the milk and eggs that were the pick o' Polmoot dairy," she said. "Ah, consumptives are always fanciful," commented Miss Helen. Miss Bell roused herself from her reverie of shadowy sentiment. "Wha's that sittin' so dowie-like amang the graves? " she asked. " Is it no young Bethune himsel'?" "Your eyes must be failing fast, Bell," answered Miss Helen ; " Rab Bethune, indeed ! It 's some sort of tramp." " Or may be an artist, mem," said the old driver, over hearing the ladies' remarks as he slackened his pace on the up-hill road.

" There 's a many artists come sketching i' the kirkyard. They say it gives the bonniest view of the Edenlaw. But I dinna ken any strangers i' the village just noo," he added. "Ah, he's something of the artist or tramp sort — it often means the same thing," observed Miss Helen. " He is quite frayed out at elbows, as if he had tramped from Land's End and slept in barns all along the way." " Waes me, Helen, I didna say his jacket an' trousers were like Rab Bethune's, but I said he had a luik o' his face, and a turn of auld Bethune's figure in his younger days. An' sae he has ! " persisted Miss Bell. " It 's a peety that it 's rags and poortith that are sae picturesque. Dress claes an' fine linen hae naething to do wi' the stories and ballads that are always runnin' i' my heid. Eh, but the laddie standin' sae dowie amang the graves just minds me o' a line oot o' ane o' them : — On hills that were by rights his ain, He wanders as a stranger.

AMONG THE HILLS o' TWEED. 7 It 's easy to let ane's fancy mak' him oot to be a descendant o' ane o' the auld attainted families come back to visit the dale o' his fathers.". " More likely he is thinking of the dinner and lodging he does not know how to pay for. You poetical people are always soaring up in the clouds, instead of sitting safe among plain facts," decided Miss Gibson complacently. Then, slightly raising her voice, she asked the old driver, " Are the crops pretty fair this year ? " " D'ye mean the craps in general or the maister's craps? " asked the old Scotchman. " O, all of them," said Miss Helen ; " but of course you '11 know most of Mr Baird's." " Aye — weel ! they 're just middlin'; they might be better and they might be waur : that 's ane o' Mr Baird's fields that 's done fine," and he indicated with his whip.

" I suppose Miss Lesley is a great comfort to her uncle? " Miss Helen went on. " I'm sure it was a good providence that she found such a home to take refuge in." "Weel, Miss Lesley's just the licht o' Edenhaugh," said the old driver. " Aye, she may be that," put in Miss Bell ; " but a candle aye wants a candlestick to set it off." " Has she a turn for housekeeping ? " asked Miss Helen. " Do you see her often in the kitchen, or dairy, John? " " I dinna ken mair nor that the house seems to keep itsel'," answered John ; " and the women-folk are aye in a gude temper. Miss Lesley doesna fuss an' worry them at their wark." " An' hoo does she divert hersel' in the lang, lang hours ? " asked Miss Bell. " Waes me, ye can mak' bonnie writin' oot o' country life, but I aye found it gey wearisome in its-el'."

" She does a' the stitchery an' knittin'," said the old man ; "an' in the evening she and the maister read a good bit; an' she walks owre the hills for hours wi' the auld collie Peg (the poor beast 's ill the day, an' Miss Lesley 's sair put oot) ; an' she 's muckle taken up wi' wee Master Logan, the mitherless boy at Gowan Brae ; she helps him a deal wi' his lessons." " The Gowan Brae people can pay for their own school ing," said Miss Helen, testily. " Lesley Baird had better think what she will do when she's thrown on her own resources, for her uncle's property will cut up small enough among all his nephews and nieces, and of course he '11 not favour one more than another." And then they drew up beside the rowan tree that over hung the gate of the modest mansion of Edenhaugh.

Chapter II. An Old Ballad And

A NEW LOVE STORY. EDENHAUGH was a long low house, standing a little away from the road towards which it turned its back, with just one or two windows therein to keep, as it were, a watch upon the gate. It was but an ancient farmhouse of the better sort, and would have been positively primitive, save for sundry improvements which had been made in the time of the present proprietor's parents. The pair had been a bluff, warm-hearted Borderer and a gentle Highland girl who had brought no wealth to the Tweedside home where she had lived— like a white rose blooming on a wild moorland. Her sensitive and passionate nature had not found much society among the blunt and self-contained, though kindly dales-folk. Therefore all her pleasures had lain within the four walls of her home. For her had been built those two pretty rooms with the wide, low windows, arranged to catch all that could be caught both of the morning and evening sunlight.

Traces of her cultivated feminine taste were to be found in the bits of old china and of quaint needlework scattered about the house, as well as in the well stocked bookcase, whose comparatively wide range of literature had long made Edenhaugh an oracle among such progressive youth of the dale as needed some mental nutriment less dry than the shorter Catechism and old treatises of Covenanting theology. The portrait of this long dead mistress of the house, though it was but the work of some nameless artist, gave worthy presentment of a sweet and gracious face, with far-away eyes and sensitive mouth. A tithe of the grandmother's beauty, mingled with traits of greater strength, had descended to the present " young leddy o' Edenhaugh " — Miss Lesley Baird, the only child of the beautiful Highlander's youngest and favourite son.

He had been so very like his mother, only with that difference of sex which often fatally changes all — like a fair scroll copied backwards. He had proved, as the country folk said, "a feckless body," and had married a ploughman's pretty daughter. On her stronger character and brave struggles he had borne heavily until she died. Then helplessly incapable and fiercely independent he had soon slipped from his dominie's stool and followed her to the grave, leaving their only child, Lesley, to the truly tender mercies of his eldest brother, the bachelor head of the Baird family — the present master of Edenhaugh. Lesley Baird was waiting to welcome her uncle's guests. The girl had warmly hospitable instincts, though few of the sparse visitors to Edenhaugh brought her any delight except a sense of relief when they were gone, and she was once more free to chatter with her uncle or romp with little Jamie Logan.

This was not the Gibsons' first visit to Edenhaugh since it had been Lesley's home. And Lesley really liked good - humoured Miss Bell, with whom she fancied she could be more her real and whole self than with any other woman she had ever seen. And though she had been repelled by those observations of Miss Helen's, which that oracle knew she resented, still the general conventionalities of the good lady were not with out an atmosphere of rule and order which for this self dependent girl had an attraction far greater than it would possess for those more under its sway. But poor Lesley, as she ran out to the chaise and loaded herself with the shawls and band boxes, was not so wholly gleeful as she might have been only a few days earlier. A single thrill of pain will show us where the life of our life lies, and can make us realise how little all other things signify.

To-day Lesley could not be quite glad to see the Misses Gibson, for was not poor Peg dying in the stable, and was not — but never mind what else ! — Lesley had been crying. One of the advantages of Nature's beautiful arrangement, by which troubles never come alone, is that all the outward signs of the inward woe which we cannot mention may be reasonably attributed to that which we can ! Certainly Lesley would have wept bitterly enough over dear old Peg had there been no other cause for tears — nay, it really pained her loyal heart to feel that anything else was mingled in her grief for the old favourite. " I've just been in the stable to see my poor dog," she explained to the two ladies, as she led them into the house ; "she cannot get better, but she is dying so easily that we need not disturb her.

She has been my dog ever since I came to Edenhaugh. Poor old Peggy ! " Poor Peggy could claim all the tears which started afresh in the deep hazel eyes. " Loshie me, I'm wae to hear tell aboot it, Lesley," said Miss Bell. " I ken hoo I greitit owre my auld pet Crum mie. But that 's lang syne. I've had nae pet doggie since. It 's weel to set na our heart on beast nor body. It 's just sorrow an' vexation o' spirit. Like them weel enough and lat them pass, Lesley. There 's nae gude in wearin' your heart oot." " There 's too much real trouble in the world for us to waste grief on mere animals," observed Miss Helen. "Peggy has had an easy life at Edenhaugh. There's no eternity for the creature and no judgment awaiting her." Lesley did not answer, as she led the ladies to the chamber prepared for them.

She thought within herself that if she was quite sure that poor Peggy, panting in the stable, was really going out for ever, her grief would be but the more bitter. All details Lesley was prepared to leave with God, yet she felt comfort in a faith that Peggy's poor dumb love would not go out, would not grow less, but would go up, and into something infinitely higher. Perhaps there is this faith, conscious or unconscious, in all of those about whom animals instinctively fawn and fondle, for has not man himself, from the beginning, been ready to worship and follow all those brother men who have most clearly recognised the latent powers and lofty destiny of manhood ? Lesley said nothing of all this to her visitors. She was accustomed to keep her thoughts to herself. She only lingered to help them make their toilets for the " dinner-tea " at which Mr Baird would join them.

"You're thinner surely, Lesley," observed Miss Helen, "and that dress of yours is very much out of the present style. Whom did you employ to make it ? " " A young girl living near," answered Lesley. " She was learning her trade in Edinburgh when her mother died, and she had to come home to nurse and support a paralysed father and a crippled brother." " Is she an interestin' bit body ? Wad she do for ane o' my ' Records o' the Poor ' that I'm aye thinkin' o' writing ? " asked Miss Bell. " She maun hae some hard lines to thole. Is she the sort that will tell you what 's i' her heart when it 's doon, and what uphauds it ? " " It is very well to help her," said Miss Helen. " You could give her some common work, Lesley. If all the ladies about gave her their common things to make, it would be about as much as she could get through."

"But so many people have old workwomen of their own," said Lesley. " If I didn't give her all my work, my work wouldn't be much worth giving; besides, you must not judge of her powers by what she does for me. I don't care for fashions, I like my gowns made in a style of my own — and she will do as I wish, which some dressmakers will not." " As weel be oot o' the warld as oot o' the fashion, Lesley," laughed Miss Bell. " Every woman should have a proper regard for appear ance," said Miss Helen. Lesley only smiled in reply. She did care a great deal for her appearance in some eyes, but then those were eyes which preferred simple outlines and touches of bright colour and lacy purity, rather than the flounces and slash ings and trade tricks of mercenary millinery. Then the three went downstairs to the long, low, brown room where the Highland grandmother's pictured face sm'led down on the bountifully spread table.

Miss Helen's sharp eye ran swiftly over everything, and did not approve of the old-fashioned urn with the dint in its side, nor of the ancient bread-basket with its crochet lining, towards which her heart did not soften, though she knew that it was the handiwork of one of Mr Baird's sisters, who had died young. " Men may have fancies about these relics," she thought within herself; "but if they are judiciously made to dis appear, they slip out of their minds. Baird would buy Lesley whatever she asked for, and she ought to have an idea of how things should be." Mr Baird was a tall, loosely strung man, with kind, dim grey eyes and an uncertain mouth. His hair had been grey when his niece first knew him, and it never grew any greyer. Mr Baird's purchases steadily increased the already large collection of books at Edenhaugh, and among them were some of the newest works of science and theology.

Yet he never expressed any opinions which startled anybody. Only when anybody else was rampantly dogmatic or disputatious there was a curious quality of rest and assurance in the silence which Mr Baird generally maintained, or in the few words — usually quietly interrogative, with which he occasionally broke it. Once when the minister had ventured to throw some new light on an old doctrine (for which temerity he afterwards narrowly escaped a charge of heresy) Mr Baird's stick had come down on the floor of his pew with a thud which had a strange note of applause in it ; but next moment the stick sprawled into the aisle, and the whole incident was but an innocent accident. Miss Helen Gibson was wont to say in her disparaging way that " Mr Baird was like a man in a mist." And so he was, in that mist which often veils the dawn of a new bright day, and is indeed an accepted sign of its coming glories.

Between Miss Bell and her host, the lady's efforts at authorship were a stock subject of badinage. As he dis pensed the ham and eggs, his first enquiry was, " Well, Miss Bell, and how gets on the book ? " "Nae that weel," answered Miss Bell; "it's but slow work. Folks willna tak' the trouble to send me stories, and though I gae aboot and collect a' that I can mysel', what can one body do ? Partrick whiles gets me a new ane, an' I'm aye looking for a hundred frae yersel', Mr Baird. But 'deed, it 's only for my ain love o' them, that I 'm collecting, for I dinna ken that ither folks will care for them sae muckle after a' my pains. It 's no everybody that loves auld Scotland as you an' I do, Mr Baird. The vera lassies turn up their bit noses at Sir Walter himsel' ; naething but new things gae doon wi' the public now-a days."

" Well, all old things have one value no new ones can have," said Mr Baird ; " for we can see how they have stood the test of time. But we must look at the new things too, Miss Bell, or where would Sir Walter himself have been in his day ? " " Nothing new is likely to be much good, I think," put in Miss Helen ; " the world is leaving all the good old paths, and is getting worse every day. Even when you go to church in these times you can't be sure, beforehand, what you'll hear." Mr Baird looked at his niece with a faint smile, and diverted the conversation by saying — "And when you have finished this book that you are upon, Miss Bell, have you settled who is to publish it ? " "'Deed, it's no for me to settle that," said Miss Bell, with good-humoured frankness; "it's no who shall I choose to publish it, but who shall I get to pay for it !

I'll not let it gae for naething." " That 's the only light in which you writers seem to see your work," said Miss Helen severely. " When I was young and we were living at Polmoot, there was mostly a godly minister staying in our prophet's chamber, and then I did hear some edifying conversation; but since Bell's picked up with all her writing folk, there's nothing else going but ' Do you know who wrote that ? And what did he get for it?'" " Weel, when there is gear goin', I dinna see why some of it shouldna come my way," pouted Miss Bell. " What 's gude for onybody canna be sae bad for me." " I'm not so sure of that, Bell," retorted her sister, " for if I was not by to look after you, ' gear,' as you call it, would run fast and fruitless through your fingers." " Helen aye ca's it rinnin' through my fingers if I do a bit what I like wi't," said Miss Bell, addressing her host ; " I may buy mysel' a new gown, or I may mak' a present to Mrs Partrick, wha can present hersel' wi' a' she wants, an' mair too ; but I mauna buy a book that I've a mind to — and it 's wastrie if I treat mysel' wi' a stravague among my bonnie dens and glens, even when I gae there to find mair stories and mak' mair money !