"And this Colonel Mannering?"
"Troth, he's nae wise man neither to interfere—no that I blame him for saving the gaugers' lives—that was very right; but it was na like a gentleman to be fighting about the poor folk's pocks o' tea and brandy kegs—however, he's a grand man and an officer man, and they do what they like wi' the like o' us."
"And his daughter," said Brown, with a throbbing heart, "is going to be married into a great family too as I have heard?"
"What, into the Hazlewoods'? na, na, that's but idle clashes—every sabbath-day, as regularly as it came round, did the young man ride hame wi' the daughter of the late Ellangowan—and my daughter Peggy's in the service up at Woodbourne, and she says she's sure young Hazlewood thinks nae mair of Miss Mannering than ye do."
Bitterly censuring his own precipitate adoption of a contrary belief, Brown yet
