"
"Nay, that is true. Your good resolutions were always like cobwebs, and
your evil habits like five-inch cables," replied the traveller. "I am to
understand, then, that you refuse my offer?"
"Not only that; but, if you have chosen this valley as your place of rest,
Dame Crombie and I must look through the world for another. But hush! here
comes the wine."
The hostler, in the performance of another part of his duty, now appeared,
bearing a measure of the liquor that Hugh had ordered. The wine of that
period, owing to the comparative lowness of the duties, was of more
moderate price than in the mother-country, and of purer and better quality
than at the present day.
"The stuff is well chosen, Hugh," observed the guest, after a draught
large enough to authorize an opinion. "You have most of the requisites for
your present station; and I should be sorry to draw you from it. I trust
there will be no need."
"Yet you have a purpose in your journey hither," observed his comrade.
"Yes; and you would fain be informed of it," replied the traveller. He
arose, and walked once or twice across the room; then, seeming to have
taken his resolution, he paused, and fixed his eye steadfastly on Hugh
Crombie. "I could wish, my old acquaintance," he said, "that your lot had
been cast anywhere rather than here.
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