his return, and, she feared, had found it dull. "There's no' a man
body in the place. Naething but auld wives."

That was what the innkeeper had told them. Mr. McCunn inquired
concerning the inn.

"There's new folk just came. What's this they ca' them?--Robson-
Dobson--aye, Dobson. What far wad they no' tak' ye in? Does the
man think he's a laird to refuse folk that gait?"

"He said he had illness in the house."

Mrs. Morran meditated. "Whae in the world can be lyin' there?
The man bides his lane. He got a lassie frae Auchenlochan to cook,
but she and her box gaed off in the post-cairt yestreen. I doot he
tell't ye a lee, though it's no for me to juidge him. I've never
spoken a word to ane o' thae new folk."

Dickson inquired about the "new folk."

"They're a' now come in the last three weeks, and there's no' a man
o' the auld stock left. John Blackstocks at the Wast Lodge dee'd o'
pneumony last back-end, and auld Simon Tappie at the Gairdens
flitted to Maybole a year come Mairtinmas. There's naebody at the
Gairdens noo, but there's a man come to the Wast Lodge, a blackavised
body wi' a face like bend-leather. Tam Robison used to bide at the
South Lodge, but Tam got killed about Mesopotamy, and his wife took
the bairns to her guidsire up at the Garpleheid. I seen the man
that's in the South Lodge gaun up the street when I was finishin'
my denner--a shilpit body and a lameter, but he hirples as fast as