The mad, raging, Presbyterian zealot of a wife at home made all of no avail; and indeed the house must have fallen years before if it had not been for the secret indulgence of the curate, who had a great sympathy with the laird, and winked hard at the doings in Montroymont.

This curate was a man very ill reputed in the countryside, and indeed in all Scotland.

'Infamous Haddo' is Shield's expression.

But Patrick Walker is more copious.

'Curate Hall Haddo,' says he, _sub voce_ Peden, 'or _Hell_ Haddo, as he was more justly to be called, a pokeful of old condemned errors and the filthy vile lusts of the flesh, a published whore-monger, a common gross drunkard, continually and godlessly scraping and skirling on a fiddle, continually breathing flames against the remnant of Israel.