noon
But not for sordid lucre would the undaunted spirit of Meg compound her feud with her neighbours of the detested Well . `` Her carriage , '' she briefly replied , `` was engaged for her ain guest and the minister , and deil anither body 's fit should gang intill ` t. Let every herring hing by its ain head . '' And , accordingly , at the duly appointed hour , creaked forth , the leathern convenience , in which , carefully screened by the curtain from the gaze of the fry of the village , sat Nabob Touchwood , in the costume of an Indian merchant , or Shroff , as they are termed . The clergyman would not , perhaps , have been so punctual , had not a set of notes and messages from his friend at the Cleikum , ever following each other as thick as the papers which decorate the tail of a schoolboy 's kite , kept him so continually on the alert from daybreak till noon , that Mr. Touchwood found him completely dressed ; and the whiskey was only delayed for about ten minutes before the door of the manse , a space employed by Mr. Cargill in searching for the spectacles , which at last were happily discovered upon his own nose . At length , seated by the side of his new friend , Mr. Cargill arrived safe at Shaws-Castle , the gate of which mansion was surrounded by a screaming group of children , so extravagantly delighted at seeing the strange figures to whom each successive carriage gave birth , that even the stern brow and well-known voice of Johnie Tirlsneck , the beadle , though stationed in the court on express purpose , was not equal to the task of controlling them . These noisy intruders , however , who , it was believed , were somewhat favoured by Clara Mowbray , were excluded from the court which opened before the house , by a couple of grooms or helpers armed with their whips , and could only salute , with their shrill and wondering hailing , the various personages , as they passed down a short avenue leading from the exterior gate . The Cleikum nabob and the minister were greeted with shouts not the least clamorous ; which the former merited by the ease with which he wore the white turban , and the latter , by the infrequency of his appearance in public , and both , by the singular association of a decent clergyman of the church of Scotland , in a dress more old-fashioned than could now be produced in the General Assembly , walking arm in arm , and seemingly in the most familiar terms , with a Parsee merchant .