trophe related in the last chapter, that, during a cold and stormy night, a social group had closed around the kitchen fire of the Gordons' Arms at Kippletringan, a small but comfortable inn, kept by Mrs Mac-Candlish in that village. The conversation which passed among them will save me the trouble of telling the few events occurring during this chasm in our history, with which it is necessary that the reader should be acquainted.
Mrs Mac-Candlish, throned in a comfortable easy chair lined with black leather, was regaling herself, and a neighbouring gossip or two, with a cup of comfortable tea, and at the same time keeping a sharp eye upon her domestics, as they went and came in prosecution of their various duties and commissions. The clerk and precentor of the parish enjoyed at a little distance his Saturday night's pipe, and aided its bland fumigation by an occasional sip of brandy and water. Deacon Bearcliff, a man of great importance in the village, combined the indulgence of both
