"My kind thanks for the compliment," replied Bucklaw; "but I suppose you
think upon the predicament in which you yourself are most likely to be
placed; and pray, Captain Craigengelt, if it please your worship, why
should I look merry, when I'm sad, and devilish sad too?"

"And that's what vexes me," said Craigengelt. "Here is this match, the
best in the whole country, and which were so anxious about, is on the
point of being concluded, and you are as sulky as a bear that has lost
its whelps."

"I do not know," answered the Laird, doggedly, "whether I should
conclude or not, if it was not that I am too far forwards to leap back."

"Leap back!" exclaimed Craigengelt, with a well-assumed air of
astonishment, "that would be playing the back-game with a witness! Leap
back! Why, is not the girl's fortune----"

"The young lady's, if you please," said Hayston, interrupting him.

"Well--well, no disrespect meant. Will Miss Ashton's tocher not weigh
against any in Lothian?"

"Granted," answered Bucklaw; "but I care not a penny for her tocher; I
have enough of my own."

"And the mother, that loves you like her own child?"

"Better than some of her children, I believe," said Bucklaw, "or there
would be little love wared on the matter."