However, I declare to you, it was very near ten o'clock before I left the house we are sitting in at present, and put my foot in the stirrup. But, as my friend Robin says—
'Weel mounted on my grey mare Meg,'
I feared for naething; and, though I had sixteen lang Scots miles to ride, I thought naething aboot it; for, as he says again—
'Kings may be great, but I was glorious,
Owre a' the ills o' life victorious!'
But, just as I had reached within about half a mile o' the toll-bar that had been erected near my farm, I saw a sort o' light rising frae the ground, and reflected on the sky. My heart sank within me in an instant. I remembered the last time I had seen such a light. I thought o' my burning stackyard, o' my ruined machine, and o' Kirsty! My first impulse was to gallop forward, but a thousand thoughts, a thousand fears cam owre me in an instant; and I thought that evil tidings come quick enough o' their ain accord, without galloping to meet them. As I approached the toll-bar, the flame and the reflection grew brighter and brighter; and I heard the sound o' human voices, in loud and discordant clamour. My forebodings told me, to use Kirsty's words, what would be the upshot. I hadna reached within a hundred yards o' the bar, when, aboon a' the shouting and the uproar, I heard her voice, the voice o' my ain wife, crying—'Mak him promise that it shall ne'er be put up again—mak him swear to it—or let his yett gang the gaet o' the toll-yett!'
"In a moment all that I had dreaded I found to be true. At the sound o' her voice, hounding on the enraged multitude, (though I didna altogether disapprove o' what they were doing,) I plunged my spurs into my horse, and galloped into the middle o' the outrageous crowd, crying—'Kirsty! I say, Kirsty! awa hame wi' ye! What right or what authority had ye to be there?'
"'Hear him! hear him!' cried the crowd, 'Willie has turned a toll-bar man, and a laird man, because the Laird once offered him the half o' his rent back again! Never mind him, Kirsty!—we'll stand yer friends!'
"'I thank ye, neighbours,' said she, 'but I require nae body to stand as friends between my guidman and me. I ken it is my duty to obey him, that is, when he is himsel', and comes hame at a reasonable time o' nicht; but not when he is in a way that he doesna ken what he's saying, as he is the nicht.'
"'Weel done, Mistress Wastle!' cried a dozen o' them; 'we see ye hae the whip-hand o' him yet!'
"'The mischief tak ye!' cried I, 'for a wheen ill-mannered scoundrels; but I'll let every mother's son and dochter among ye ken whase hand the whip is in!'