by the ignorant and the ill-willing. Mr. Henry began to be

shunned; yet awhile, and the commons began to murmur as he went by,

and the women (who are always the most bold because they are the

most safe) to cry out their reproaches to his face. The Master was

cried up for a saint. It was remembered how he had never any hand

in pressing the tenants; as, indeed, no more he had, except to

spend the money. He was a little wild perhaps, the folk said; but

how much better was a natural, wild lad that would soon have

settled down, than a skinflint and a sneckdraw, sitting, with his

nose in an account book, to persecute poor tenants! One trollop,

who had had a child to the Master, and by all accounts been very

badly used, yet made herself a kind of champion of his memory. She

flung a stone one day at Mr. Henry.

"Whaur's the bonnie lad that trustit ye?" she cried.

Mr. Henry reined in his horse and looked upon her, the blood

flowing from his lip. "Ay, Jess?" says he. "You too? And yet ye

should ken me better." For it was he who had helped her with

money.

The woman had another stone ready, which she made as if she would

cast; and he, to ward himself, threw up the hand that held his

riding-rod.

"What, would ye beat a lassie, ye ugly - ?" cries she, and ran away

screaming as though he had struck her.

Next day word went about the country like wildfire that Mr. Henry

had beaten Jessie Broun within an inch of her life. I give it as

one instance of how this snowball grew, and one calumny brought

another; until my poor patron was so perished in reputation that he

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