ither folk run. He's no' bonny to look at.. I canna think what
the factor's ettlin' at to let sic ill-faured chiels come about
the toun."

Their hostess was rapidly rising in Dickson's esteem. She sat very
straight in her chair, eating with the careful gentility of a bird,
and primming her thin lips after every mouthful of tea.

"Wha bides in the Big House?" he asked. "Huntingtower is the name,
isn't it?"

"When I was a lassie they ca'ed it Dalquharter Hoose, and
Huntingtower was the auld rickle o' stanes at the sea-end.
But naething wad serve the last laird's father but he maun change
the name, for he was clean daft about what they ca' antickities.
Ye speir whae bides in the Hoose? Naebody, since the young laird dee'd.
It's standin' cauld and lanely and steikit, and it aince the cheeriest
dwallin' in a' Carrick."

Mrs. Morran's tone grew tragic. "It's a queer warld wi'out the
auld gentry. My faither and my guidsire and his faither afore him
served the Kennedys, and my man Dauvit Morran was gemkeeper to them,
and afore I mairried I was ane o' the table-maids. They were kind
folk, the Kennedys, and, like a' the rale gentry, maist mindfu' o'
them that served them. Sic merry nichts I've seen in the auld
Hoose, at Hallowe'en and Hogmanay, and at the servants' balls and
the waddin's o' the young leddies! But the laird bode to waste his
siller in stane and lime, and hadna that much to leave to his bairns.
And now they're a' scattered or deid."