“Na, na,” said Caxon—“naebody thinks your honour wad either fight yoursell, or gie ony feck o’ siller to ony side o’ the question.”
“Umph! well, that’s the opinion of the democraws, as you call them—What say the rest o’ Fairport?”
“In troth,” said the candid reporter, “I canna say it’s muckle better. Captain Coquet, of the volunteers—that’s him that’s to be the new collector,—and some of the other gentlemen of the Blue and a’ Blue Club, are just saying it’s no right to let popists, that hae sae mony French friends as the Yerl of Glenallan, gang through the country, and—but your honour will maybe be angry?”
“Not I, Caxon,” said Oldbuck; “fire away as if you were Captain Coquet’s whole platoon—I can stand it.”
“Weel then, they say, sir, that as ye didna encourage the petition about the p
