I arose early to discover a morning gray and drear, with a mist falling to chill the bones. News travels apace the world over, and that of John Paul's home-coming and of his public renunciation of Scotland at the “Hurcheon” had reached Dumfries in good time, substantiated by the arrival of the teamster with the chests the night before. I descended into the courtyard in time to catch the captain in his watchet-blue frock haggling with the landlord for a chaise, the two of them surrounded by a muttering crowd anxious for a glimpse of Mr. Craik's gardener's son, for he had become a nine-day sensation to the country round about. But John Paul minded them not so much as a swarm of flies, and the teamster's account of the happenings at Kirkcudbright had given them so wholesome a fear of his speech and presence as to cause them to misdoubt their own wit, which is saying a deal of Scotchmen. But when the bargain had been struck and John Paul gone with the 'ostler to see to his chests, mine host thought it a pity not to have a fall out of me.
“So ye be the Buckskin laud,” he said, with a wink at a leering group of farmers; “ye hae braw gentles in America.”
He was a man of sixty or thereabout, with a shrewd but not unkindly face that had something familiar in it.
“You have discernment indeed to recognize a gentleman in Scotch clothes,” I replied, turning the laugh on him.
“Dinna raise ae Buckskin, Mr. Rawlinson,” said a man in corduroy.
“Rawlinson!” I exclaimed at random, “there is one of your name in the colonies who knows his station better.”
“Trowkt!” cried mine host, “ye ken Ivie o' Maryland, Ivie my brither?”
“He is my grandfather's miller at Carvel Hall,” I said.
“Syne ye maun be nane ither than Mr. Richard Carvel. Yere servan', Mr. Carvel,” and he made me a low bow, to the great dropping of jaws round about, and led me into the inn. With trembling hands he took a packet from his cabinet and showed me the letters, twenty-three in all, which Ivie had written home since he had gone out as the King's passenger in '45. The sight of them brought tears to my eyes and carried me out of the Scotch mist back to dear old Maryland. I had no trouble in convincing mine host that I was the lad eulogized in the scrawls, and he put hand on the very sheet which announced my birth, nineteen years since,—the fourth generation of Carvels Ivie had known.
So it came that the captain and I got the best chaise and pair in place of the worst, and sat down to a breakfast such as was prepared only for my Lord Selkirk when he passed that way, while I told the landlord of his brother; and as I talked I remembered the day I had caught the arm of the mill and gone the round, to find that Ivie had written of that, too!