threadbare suit of blacks with a coloured handkerchief, not over
clean, about his sinewy, scraggy neck, and his nether person
arrayed in gray breeches, dark-blue stockings, clouted shoes, and
small copper buckles.

Such is a brief outline of the lives and fortunes of those two
persons, in whose society Mannering now found himself comfortably
seated.



CHAPTER III.

Do not the hist'ries of all ages Relate miraculous presages, Of
strange turns in the world's affairs, Foreseen by Astrologers,
Sooth-sayers, Chaldeans learned Genethliacs, And some that have
writ almanacks?
Hudibras.

The circumstances of the landlady were pleaded to Mannering, first,
as an apology for her not appearing to welcome her guest, and for
those deficiencies in his entertainment which her attention might
have supplied, and then as an excuse for pressing an extra bottle
of good wine.

"I cannot weel sleep," said the Laird, with the anxious feelings of
a father in such a predicament, "till I hear she's gatten ower with
it--and if you, sir, are not very sleepry, and would do me and the
Dominie the honour to sit up wi' us, I am sure we shall not detain
you very late. Luckie Howatson is very expeditious;--there was ance