--"I gied them to an acquaintance of mine,
Gibbie Girder; and what about it now?"
Her excess of assurance struck Girder mute for an instant. "And YE gied
the wild-fowl, the best end of our christening dinner, to a friend of
yours, ye auld rudas! And what might HIS name be, I pray ye?"
"Just worthy Mr. Caleb Balderstone--frae Wolf's Crag," answered Marion,
prompt and prepared for battle.
Girder's wrath foamed over all restraint. If there was a circumstance
which could have added to the resentment he felt, it was that this
extravagant donation had been made in favour of our friend Caleb,
towards whom, for reasons to which the reader is no stranger, he
nourished a decided resentment. He raised his riding-wand against the
elder matron, but she stood firm, collected in herself, and undauntedly
brandished the iron ladle with which she had just been "flambing"
(Anglice, basting) the roast of mutton. Her weapon was certainly the
better, and her arm not the weakest of the two; so that Gilbert thought
it safest to turn short off upon his wife, who had by this time hatched
a sort of hysterical whine, which greatly moved the minister, who was in
fact as simple and kind-hearted a creature as ever breathed.
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