Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series, vol. 1 - 1819.djvu/298

288 honour of the family. The Master, indeed, a second time held out his purse; but, as it was in sight of the strange servant, the Butler thought himself obliged to decline what his ringers itched to clutch. "Couldna he hae slippit it gently into my hand?" said Caleb—"but his honour will never learn how to bear himsel in siccan cases."

Mysie, in the meantime, according to a uniform custom in remote places in Scotland, offered the strangers the produce of her little dairy, "while better meat was getting ready." And according to another custom, not yet wholly in desuetude, as the storm was now drifting off to leeward, the Master carried the keeper to the top of his highest tower to admire a wide and waste extent of view, and to "weary for his dinner. "