"Hoot awa' with your Parliament house!" cried Janet. "It's ten years since you were in Edinburgh, and how can ye mind if he's a writer or no? Besides, I told ye, he's no feared for ony writer; he asked me, bless the callant! what a writer was?"
Adam was more sceptical, having, as he thought, more knowledge of the world. "Ye may ken the thing and no ken the name," he said.
But even he shouldered his rood and stalked away with a relieved mind; for Lewis had so moved the household at the 'Murkley Arms,' and even the village itself, in his favour, that the writer would have fared badly who had meant mischief to the kind and friendly visitor who had conciliated everybody. Janet, considering all the circumstances, was of opinion that, after the greeting she had seen, it would be natural and desirable to put in hand certain preparations for luncheon of a more than usually elaborate kind.
But if his humble friends were consoled, Lewis was taken entirely by surprise. He said, "Mr. Allenerly!" in a tone between astonishment and dismay.
"It is just me," said the lawyer, "and I had a moral conviction it was you I should find, though no one knew the name of Grantley——"
"Hush!" cried Lewis in alarm, raising his hand.
"It is not a nice thing in any circumstances," said the newcomer, "for a man to disown his own name."
There was an impulse of anger in Lewis' mind not at all natural to him.
"It is with no evil intention, and it is no case of disowning my name. My kind god-father, my patron—you are free to call him what you will—wished it to be so. I have adopted his suggestion, that is all."
"But here, of all places in the world!" cried Mr. Allenerly—"it is the imprudence I am thinking of. You have a good right to it, if you please—but here! Have they not put you through your catechism to know what Murrays you were of? That would be the first thing they would do——"