"
He then permitted Lockhard to depart; and with foot heavy as lead, and
yet far lighter than his heart, stepped on through the unequal street
of the straggling village, meditating on whom he ought to make his
first attack. It was necessary he should find some one with whom old
acknowledged greatness should weigh more than recent independence, and
to whom his application might appear an act of high dignity, relenting
at once and soothing. But he could not recollect an inhabitant of a mind
so constructed. "Our kail is like to be cauld eneugh too," he reflected,
as the chorus of "Cauld Kail in Aberdeen" again reached his ears. The
minister--he had got his presentation from the late lord, but they had
quarrelled about teinds; the brewster's wife--she had trusted long, and
the bill was aye scored up, and unless the dignity of the family should
actually require it, it would be a sin to distress a widow woman.
None was so able--but, on the other hand, none was likely to be less
willing--to stand his friend upon the present occasion, than Gibbie
Girder, the man of tubs and barrels already mentioned, who had headed
the insurrection in the matter of the egg and butter subsidy.
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