Page:Tales of my landlord (Volume 3).djvu/250

 upon the terrestrial objects around, while, at every solemn stride, his toes were pointed outwards with an air that appeared to despise the ground on which they trode. Lord Evandale could not suppress a smile at this singular figure.

"Did you ever," said he to Major Bellenden, "see such an absurd automaton? One would swear it moves upon springs—Can it speak, think you?"

"O, ay," said the Major; "that seems to be one of my old acquaintance, a genuine puritan of the right pharasaical leaven.—Stay—he coughs and hems; he is about to summon the Castle with the butt end of a sermon instead of a parley on the trumpet."

The veteran, who in his day had had many an opportunity to become acquainted with. the manners of these religionists, was not far mistaken in his conjecture, only that, instead of a pros exordium, the Laird of Langcale, for it was no less a personage,