iMMIlOD'S NORTHERN TOUR. 207 



resumed I ; " I should like to know to whom he sold the shoes and the 

 skm. 



On our road homewards, I, for the first time in my life, heard the 

 word " laird," applied in propria persona. " I don't see the laird 

 coming," said Mrs. Baillie, looking back towards the ftirm. Now there 

 is, to ray ear, something soothing as well as patriarchal in this word 

 laird^ and though not so high sounding and aristocratical as thane, is a 

 thousand times better than squire. 



It is impossible to be long in Mr. Baillie 's presence without something 

 to make you laugh. As we entered Mellerstain-house, a portrait in one 

 of the passages attracted my notice. " I can tell you a good anecdote 

 about that old fellow," said the laird; " his name was Duncan Gordon, 

 and he was huntsman to my father. There happened to be, at one time, 

 some savage hounds in his kennel, which it was by no means safe for any 

 person to approach, unless very well known to them. . On the wife of 

 this man being one day seen coming out of it, by herself, she was asked, 

 if she were not afraid to trust herself there alone ? ' Na, na,' she 

 replied ; ' they na meddle wi' me ; I suppose they find something of 

 Duncan aboot me.' " This almost comes up to the notion of Homer in 

 the Odyssey, and which notion, as I have read, was once popular in 

 Scotland — that dogs are sensible when a good or evil spirit comes into 

 a house: — 



" The cloo-s intellio-ent confess'd the tread 



Of power divine, and liowling, trembling fled." 



After another agreeable evening within the walls of Mellerstain ; 

 another specimen of Andrew's fiddling ; a good night's rest and a Scotch 



