him e'en now—I have a sma' matter due mysell, but I would rather have lost it than gane to turn the auld man out of his house, and him just dying."
"Aye but," said the parish-clerk, "Mr Glossin wants to get rid of the auld Laird, and drive on the sale for fear the heir-male should cast up upon them—for I have heard say, if there was an heir-male, they could not sell the estate for auld Ellangowan's debt."
"He had a son born a good many years ago," said the stranger; "he is dead, I suppose?"
"Nae man can say for that," said the clerk mysteriously.
"Dead!" said the Deacon, "I'se warrant him dead lang syne; he has not been heard of these twenty years or therebye."
"I wot weel it's no twenty years," said the landlady; "it's no abune seventeen at the outside in this very month; it made an unco noise ower a' this country—the bairn disappeared the very day that Su-
