 A comic sub-plot concerns Richard Rickleton, a good-natured but uncouth and impetuous farmer.Brought to Edinburgh as a suitor for Gatty when M’Ion is out of favour, he commits various solecisms, and when M’Ion and his friends - incited by the mischievous Joseph, Gatty’s brother - raise subjects of conversation which unwittingly offend him, becomes violent, and ends up in jail.Still enraged, he challenges M’Ion and his two friends to duels, in one of which he wounds M’Ion - the others not caring to face his anger.