"No—no a'," he said, with a somewhat perplexing confusion of vowels, and burst into a sudden laugh. "And even me, my bark's worse than my bite," he added, with an amused look. Then, after a pause, "You're a gentleman that can tak' a joke. I like that sort. The English are maistly awfu' serious. They just glower at ye. You've maybe been in this countryside before?"
"Never before. I have never been in Scotland before, nor in England either, for that matter," said the young man.
"Lord sake!" cried Duncan, "and where may ye belong to, when you are at hame?"
But the stranger did not carry his complacency so far as this. He said, somewhat abruptly,
"Do you know anything about the family to whom that place belongs?"
"Do I ken onything about—— It's weel seen you've no acquaintance with this countryside," said Duncan. "What should a person ken about if no the Murrays? Was it the Murrays ye were meaning? I ken as much about them as ony man, whaever the other may be. My sister cam' frae Moffatt with them—that's my caulf-ground—and my little Bessy is in the kitchen, and coming on grand. I can tell you everything about them, if that's what you want."
"Oh, not so much as that," said Grantley; "I am not so curious. Do they intend to finish the Murkley Castle?" he asked.
"Finish it! Oh, man, but it's little you ken. I'll tell ye the haill story, if you like. You see there was old Sir Patrick. He was the man that biggit yon muckle castle; but his siller failed, and he took a disgust at it; then he gaed abroad, and things turned, and he got his money back. But do ye think he was the man to do like other folk, to let it go to them that had a right? Na, na, ye're out of your reckoning. He was an auld fool—him that had a son, and grandchildren, and a' that—what must he do but take up with some urchin he picked out of the streets, and pet it, and make of it, and set it up for a gentleman, and leave all his siller to that."
Lewis Grantley had started again at this description. He said, hastily,
"How do you know that it was out of the streets? How do you know——" and then he stopped short, and laughed. "Tell the story, my good fellow, your own way."