"Whisper?" resumed she in her shrillest note--"why, they whisper loud
enough for me at least to hear them, that the schoolmaster of
Gandercleuch is turned a doited auld woman, and spends all his time in
tippling strong drink with the keeper of the public-house, and leaves
school and book-making, and a' the rost o't, to the care of his usher;
and, also, the wives in Gandercleuch say, that you have engaged Paul
Pattison to write a new book, which is to beat a' the lave that gaed
afore it; and to show what a sair lift you have o' the job, you didna
sae muckle as ken the name o't--no nor whether it was to be about some
Heathen Greek, or the Black Douglas."

This was said with such bitterness that it penetrated to the very quick,
and I hurled the poor old pipe, like one of Homer's spears, not in the
face of my provoking helpmate, though the temptation was strong, but
into the river Gander, which as is now well known to tourists from the
uttermost parts of the earth, pursues its quiet meanders beneath the
bank on which the school-house is pleasantly situated; and, starting up,
fixed on my head the cocked hat, (the pride of Messrs. Grieve and
Scott's repository,) and plunging into the valley of the brook, pursued
my way upwards, the voice of Mrs. Cleishbotham accompanying me in my
retreat with something like the angry scream of triumph with which the
brood-goose pursues the flight of some unmannerly cur or idle boy who
has intruded upon her premises, and fled before her. Indeed, so great
was the influence of this clamour of scorn and wrath which hung upon my
rear, that while it rung in my ears I was so moved that I instinctively
tucked the skirts of my black coat under my arm, as if I had been in
actual danger of being seized on by the grasp of the pursuing enemy.
Nor was it till I had almost reached the well-known burial-place, in
which it was Peter Pattison's hap to meet the far-famed personage