of Cuddie Headrigg the ploughman, and the abetment which he had received
from his mother--these being regarded as the original causes of the
disaster which had befallen the chivalry of Tillietudlem. The charge
being fully made out and substantiated, Lady Margaret resolved to
reprimand the culprits in person, and, if she found them impenitent, to
extend the censure into a sentence of expulsion from the barony. Miss
Bellenden alone ventured to say any thing in behalf of the accused, but
her countenance did not profit them as it might have done on any other
occasion. For so soon as Edith had heard it ascertained that the
unfortunate cavalier had not suffered in his person, his disaster had
affected her with an irresistible disposition to laugh, which, in spite
of Lady Margaret's indignation, or rather irritated, as usual, by
restraint, had broke out repeatedly on her return homeward, until her
grandmother, in no shape imposed upon by the several fictitious causes
which the young lady assigned for her ill-timed risibility, upbraided her
in very bitter terms with being insensible to the honour of her family.
Miss Bellenden's intercession, therefore, had, on this occasion, little
or no chance to be listened to.

As if to evince the rigour of her disposition, Lady Margaret, on this
solemn occasion, exchanged the ivory-headed cane with which she commonly
walked, for an immense gold-headed staff which had belonged to her
father, the deceased Earl of Torwood, and which, like a sort of mace of
office, she only made use of on occasions of special solemnity. Supported
by this awful baton of command, Lady Margaret Bellenden entered the
cottage of the delinquents.

There was an air of consciousness about old Mause, as she rose from her
wicker chair in the chimney-nook, not with the cordial alertness of
visage which used, on other occasions, to express the honour she felt in