'Well, that bangs Banagher!' she said, with a loud laugh, as she smartly touched the cob with the whip. 'The Great Western Road, of a' places in the world! The Great Western Road—and he goes off by the New City Road—there's a place for twa lovers to forgather!
"We'll meet beside the dusky glen, on yon burn side,
Where the bushes form a cosie den, on yon burn side."
But the Great Western Road—bless us a', and the laddie used to write poetry!'
'But what is it, Katie?'
'Why, it's Ronald and his lass, woman: didna ye see them? Oh ay, he's carried his good looks to a braw market—set her up wi' her velvet hat and her sealskin coat, and living in Queen's Crescent forbye. Ay, ay, he's ta'en his pigs to a braw market——'
'It's no possible, Katie dear!' exclaimed mother Paterson, who affected to be very much shocked. 'Your cousin Ronald wi' a sweetheart?—and him so much indebted to you——'
'The twa canary birds!' she continued, with mirth that sounded not quite real. 'But never a kiss at parting, wi' a' they folk about. And that's why ye've been hiding yourself away, my lad? But I jalouse that that braw young leddy o' yours would laugh the other side of her mouth if her friends were to find out her pranks.'
And indeed that was the thought that chiefly occupied her mind during the rest of the drive home. Arrived there, she called for the Post-Office Directory, and found that the name of the people living in that house in Queen's Crescent was Gemmill. She asked her cronies, when they turned up in the evening, who this Gemmill was; but neither of them knew. Accordingly, being left to her own resources, and without letting even mother Paterson know, she took a sheet of paper and wrote as follows—
'SIR—Who is the young lady in your house who keeps appointments with Ronald Strang, formerly of Inver-Mudal? Keep a better look-out. Yours, A Friend.'