deeper, the mair he
was warned against it by Monkbarns.«
    »What say you then,« said Lovel, »to letting Miss Wardour know the
circumstance?«
    »Ou, puir thing, how could she stop her father doing his pleasure? - and,
besides, what wad it help? There's a sough in the country about that six hundred
pounds, and there's a writer chield in Edinburgh has been driving the
spur-rowels o' the law up to the head into Sir Arthur's sides to gar him pay it,
and if he canna, he maun gang to jail or flee the country. He's like a desperate
man, and just catches at this chance as a' he has left, to escape utter
perdition; so what signifies plaguing the puir lassie about what canna be
helped? And besides, to say the truth, I wadna like to tell the secret o' this
place. It's unco convenient, ye see yoursell, to hae a hiding-hole o' ane's ain;
and though I be out o' the line o' needing ane e'en now, and trust in the power
o' grace that I'll ne'er do onything to need ane again, yet naebody kens what
temptation ane may be gien ower to - and, to be brief, I downa bide the thought
of onybody kennin about the place; - they say, keep a thing seven year, an'
ye'll aye find a use for't - and maybe I may need the cove, either for mysell,
or for some ither body.«
    This argument, in which Edie Ochiltree, notwithstanding his scraps of
morality and of divinity, seemed to take, perhaps from old habit, a personal
interest, could not be handsomely controverted by Lovel, who was at that moment
reaping the benefit of the secret of which the old man appeared to be so
jealous.
    This incident, however, was of great service to Lovel, as diverting his mind
from the unhappy occurrence of the evening, and considerably rousing the
energies which had been stupified by the first view of his calamity. He
reflected that it by no means necessarily followed that a dangerous wound must
be a fatal one - that he had been hurried from the spot even before the surgeon
had expressed any opinion of Captain M'Intyre's situation - and that he had
duties on earth to perform, even should the very worst be true, which, if they
could not restore his peace of mind or sense of innocence, would furnish a