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"

He cocked his hat at me, as if I had been to blame for this
partiality; then changed again into his usual swaggering civility,
shook me by the hand, and set off down to the boat, with the money
under his arms, and whistling as he went the pathetic air of SHULE
AROON. It was the first time I had heard that tune; I was to hear
it again, words and all, as you shall learn, but I remember how
that little stave of it ran in my head after the freetraders had
bade him "Wheesht, in the deil's name," and the grating of the oars
had taken its place, and I stood and watched the dawn creeping on
the sea, and the boat drawing away, and the lugger lying with her
foresail backed awaiting it.


The gap made in our money was a sore embarrassment, and, among
other consequences, it had this: that I must ride to Edinburgh,
and there raise a new loan on very questionable terms to keep the
old afloat; and was thus, for close upon three weeks, absent from
the house of Durrisdeer.

What passed in the interval I had none to tell me, but I found Mrs.
Henry, upon my return, much changed in her demeanour. The old
talks with my lord for the most part pretermitted; a certain
deprecation visible towards her husband, to whom I thought she
addressed herself more often; and, for one thing, she was now
greatly wrapped up in Miss Katharine. You would think the change
was agreeable to Mr. Henry; no such matter! To the contrary, every
circumstance of alteration was a stab to him; he read in each the
avowal of her truant fancies. That constancy to the Master of
which she was proud while she supposed him dead, she had to blush
for now she knew he was alive, and these blushes were the hated
spring of her new conduct. I am to conceal no truth; and I will
here say plainly, I think this was the period in which Mr. Henry
showed the worst. He contained himself, indeed, in public; but
there was a deep-seated irritation visible underneath. With me,
from whom he had less concealment, he was often grossly unjust, and
even for his wife he would sometimes have a sharp retort: perhaps
when she had ruffled him with some unwonted kindness; perhaps upon
no tangible occasion, the mere habitual tenor of the man's
annoyance bursting spontaneously forth. When he would thus forget
himself (a thing so strangely out of keeping with the terms of
their relation), there went a shook through the whole company, and
the pair would look upon each other in a kind of pained amazement.

All the time, too, while he was injuring himself by this defect of
temper, he was hurting his position by a silence, of which I scarce
know whether to say it was the child of generosity or pride. The
freetraders came again and again, bringing messengers from the
Master, and none departed empty-handed. I never durst reason with
Mr. Henry; he gave what was asked of him in a kind of noble rage.
Perhaps because he knew he was by nature inclining to the
parsimonious, he took a backforemost pleasure in the recklessness

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