The companion of his travels seemed in the hostler's eye deserving of his care, being a strong active horse, fit either for the road or field, but rather high in bone from a long journey, though from the state of his skin it appeared the utmost care had been bestowed to keep him in condition. While the groom obeyed the stranger's directions, the latter, with the saddle-bags laid over his arm, entered the kitchen of the inn.
Here he found the landlady herself in none of her most blessed humours. The cook-maid was abroad on some errand, and Meg, in a close review of the kitchen apparatus, was making the unpleasant discovery, that trenchers had been broken or cracked, pots and saucepans not so accurately scoured as her precise notions of cleanliness required, which, joined to other detections of a more petty description, stirred her bile in no small degree; so that while she disarranged and arranged the bink, she maundered, in an under tone, complaints and menaces against the absent delinquent.
The entrance of a guest did not induce her to suspend this agreeable amusement—she just glanced at him as he entered, then turned her back short on him, and continued her labour and her soliloquy of lamentation. Truth is, she thought she recognised in the person of the stranger, one of those useful envoys of the commercial community, called, by themselves and the waiters, Travellers, par excellence—by others, Riders and Bagmen. Now against this class of customers Meg had peculiar prejudices; because, there being no shops in the old village of Saint Ronan's, the said commercial emissaries, for the convenience of their traffic, always took up their abode at the New Inn, or Hotel, in the rising and rival village called Saint Ronan's Well, unless when some straggler, by chance or dire necessity, was compelled to lodge himself at the Auld Town, as the place of Meg's residence began to be generally termed. She had, therefore, no sooner formed the hasty conclusion, that the individual in question belonged to this obnoxious class, than she resumed her former occupation, and continued to soliloquize and apostrophize her absent handmaidens, without even appearing sensible of his presence.
“The huzzy Beenie—the jaud Eppie—the deil's buckie of a callant!—Another plate gane—they'll break me out of house and ha'!”
The traveller, who, with his saddle-bags rested on the back of a chair, had waited in silence for some note of welcome, now saw that, ghost or no ghost, he must speak first, if he intended to have any notice from his landlady.
“You are my old acquaintance, Mrs. Margaret Dods?” said the stranger.
“What for no?—and wha are ye that speers?” said Meg, in the same breath, and began to rub a brass candlestick with more vehemence than before—the dry tone in which she spoke, indicating plainly how little concern she took in the conversation.
“A traveller, good Mistress Dods, who comes to take up his lodgings here for a day or two.”
“I am thinking ye will be mista'en,” said Meg; “there's nae room for bags or jaugs here—ye've mista'en your road, neighbour—ye maun e'en bundle yoursell a bit farther down hill.”
“I see you have not got the letter I sent you, Mistress Dods?” said the guest.
“How should I, man?” answered the hostess; “they have ta'en awa the post-office from us—moved it down till the Spa-well yonder, as they ca'd.”
“Why, that is but a step off,” observed the guest.
“Ye will get there the sooner,” answered the hostess.
“Nay, but,” said the guest, “if you had sent there for my letter, you would have learned”——
“I'm no wanting to learn ony thing at my years,” said Meg. “If folk have ony thing to write to me about, they may gie the letter to John Hislop, the carrier, that has used the road these forty years. As for the letters at the post-mistress's, as they ca' her, down by yonder, they may bide in her shop-window, wi' the snaps and bawbee rows, till Beltane, or I loose them. I'll never file my fingers with them. Post-mistress, indeed!—Upsetting cutty! I mind her fu' weel when she dree'd penance for ante-nup”——
Laughing, but interrupting Meg in good time for the character of the post-mistress, the stranger assured her he had sent his fishing-rod and trunk to her confidential friend the carrier, and that he sincerely hoped she would not turn an old acquaintance out of her premises, especially as he believed he could not sleep in a bed within five miles of Saint Ronan's, if he knew that her Blue room was unengaged.
“Fishing-rod!—Auld acquaintance!—Blue room!” echoed Meg, in some surprise; and, facing round upon the stranger, and examining him with some interest and curiosity—“Ye'll be nae bagman, then, after a'?”
“No,” said the traveller; “not since I have laid the saddle-bags out of my hand.”
“Weel, I canna say but I am glad of that—I canna bide their yanking way of knapping English at every word.—I have kent decent lads amang them too—What for no?—But that was when they stopped up here whiles, like other douce folk; but since they gaed down, the hail flight of them, like a string of wild-geese, to the new-fashioned hottle yonder, I am told there are as mony hellicate tricks played in the travellers' room, as they behove to call it, as if it were fu' of drunken young lairds.”
“That is because they have not you to keep good order among them, Mistress Margaret.”
“Ay, lad?” replied Meg, “ye are a fine blaw-in-my-lug, to think to cuittle me off sae cleverly!” And, facing about upon her guest, she honoured him with a more close and curious investigation than she had at first designed to bestow upon him.
All that she remarked was in her opinion rather favourable to the stranger. He was a well-made man, rather above than under the middle size, and apparently betwixt five-and-twenty and thirty years of age—for, although he might, at first glance, have passed for one who had attained the latter period, yet, on a nearer examination, it seemed as if the burning sun of a warmer climate than Scotland, and perhaps some fatigue, both of body and mind, had imprinted the marks of care and of manhood upon his countenance, without abiding the course of years. His eyes and teeth were excellent, and his other features, though they could scarce be termed handsome, expressed sense and acuteness; he bore, in his aspect, that ease and composure of manner, equally void of awkwardness and affectation, which is said emphatically to mark the gentleman; and, although neither the plainness of his dress, nor the total want of the usual attendants, allowed Meg to suppose him a wealthy man, she had little doubt that he was above the rank of her lodgers in general. Amidst these observations, and while she was in the course of making them, the good landlady was embarrassed with various obscure recollections of having seen the object of them formerly; but when, or on what occasion, she was quite unable to call to remembrance. She was particularly puzzled by the cold and sarcastic expression of a countenance, which she could not by any means reconcile with the recollections which it awakened. At length she said, with as much courtesy as she was capable of assuming—“Either I have seen you before, sir, or some ane very like ye?—Ye ken the Blue room, too, and you a stranger in these parts?”
“Not so much a stranger as you may suppose, Meg,” said the guest, assuming a more intimate tone, “when I call myself Frank Tyrrel.”
“Tirl!” exclaimed Meg, with a tone of wonder—“It's impossible! You cannot be Francie Tirl, the wild callant that was fishing and bird-nesting here seven or eight years syne—it canna be—Francie was but a callant!”
“But add seven or eight years to that boy's life, Meg,” said the stranger gravely, “and you will find you have the man who is now before you.”
“Even sae!” said Meg, with a glance at the reflection of her own countenance in the copper coffee-pot, which she had scoured so brightly that it did the office of a mirror—“Just e'en sae—but folk maun grow auld or die.—But, Maister Tirl, for I mauna ca' ye Francie now, I am thinking”——
“Call me what you please, good dame,” said the stranger; “it has been so long since I heard any one call me by a name that sounded like former kindness, that such a one is more agreeable to me than