In character, Robert Adair was something of an original. In speech, blunt, plain, and humorous; but in disposition, kind, sincere, and generous. He was, in short, in all respects an excellent and worthy man. On the score of education, he had not much to boast of; but this deficiency was, in part at any rate, compensated by great natural shrewdness and vigour of mind.
Such, then, were the inmates of the farm-house of West Mains, at the period to which our story refers, and which is somewhere about the year 1788.
It was at the close of a day of incessant rain, in the month of September of that year, or it may, perhaps, have been of the year following, that a young man, of somewhere about five-and-twenty years of age, respectably dressed, with a stick in his hand, and a small leathern bundle under his arm, presented himself at the door of Robert Adair's house, and knocked for admittance. The door was opened by Robert himself; and when it was so, the person whom we have described stood before him. He was drenched with wet. It was streaming from his hat, and had soaked him all over to the skin. He was thus, altogether, in most uncomfortable plight; for, besides being wet, the night was intensely cold.
"Can you, my good friend," said the stranger, in a tone and manner that bespoke a person of education at least, if it might not be ventured to call him a gentleman—"Can you give me quarters for a night?" he said, on being confronted by Mr Adair. "I am an entire stranger in this part of the country, and do not know of any inn at hand, otherwise I would not have troubled you. I will, very readily, pay for my accommodation."
"A nicht's quarters, frien," replied Adair. "Oh, surely, ye'll get that, an' welcome. Walk in. Save us, man, but ye hae gotten a soakin! Ye're like a half-drooned rat. But stap in, stap in. There's a guid fire there in the kitchen and I'm sure ye're no out the need o' a blink o't."
In a minute after, the stranger was comfortably seated before a roaring fire. But his host's hospitality did not end with this kindness; he insisted on his guest shifting himself; and, to enable him to do so, brought him a whole armfull of his own clothes; shirt, coat, waistcoat, trousers, and stockings. Nor with this kindness did his benevolence yet terminate; he invited the stranger to accept of some refreshment; an invitation which he followed up by desiring his daughter Rosy to cover a small table close by the fire, and to place thereon such edibles as she had at hand. Delighting as much as her father in acts of kindness, Rosy hastened to obey an order so agreeable to her. In a trice, she had the table covered with various good things, conspicuous amongst which was a jolly round of salt beef. In compliance with the request of his host, the stranger drew into the table thus kindly prepared for him; but, to the great disappointment of his entertainer, ate very sparingly.
"Dear help me, man!—eat, eat, canna ye!" exclaimed Adair, every now and then, as he marked the listless manner in which the stranger pecked at the food on his plate. "Eat, man, canna ye!" he said, getting absolutely angry at his guest's want of appetite, which he construed into diffidence. "Lord, man, take a richt whang on your plate at once, and dinna be nibblin at it that way, like a mouse at a Du'lap cheese." Saying this, he seized a knife and fork, cut a slice from the cold round, an inch in thickness, and at least six in diameter, and threw it on the stranger's plate with much about the same grace which he exhibited in tossing a truss of hay with a pitchfork. "There, man, tak half-a-dizzen o' cuts like that, and then ye may say ye hae made a bit supper o't."
Robert Adair was, in truth, but a rough table attendant, but he was a kind one, and in all he said and did meant well, however uncouthly it might be expressed.
Of this the stranger seemed perfectly aware; and, although he could not eat, he appeared fully to appreciate the sincerity of his host's invitations to him to do so.
After persevering, therefore, a little longer, as if to please his entertainer, he at length laid down his knife and fork, and declared that he was now satisfied, and could take no more. On his making this decided movement—