Cold beef, bread, cheese, eggs, fish, and spiced ale formed a repast which greatly comforted the earl, who saw with regret, however, how scrupulously the single knife that was allowed him was watched and removed by the careful Trotter. But the moment this meal was over, and his attendant had withdrawn, he recommenced a most minute examination of his prison, and was gradually forced to acknowledge, with a sigh of bitterness, that though neither so strong as Norham, nor so loftily situated as Stirling, its capabilities for escape were very limited indeed. Several days passed monotonously away. The earl became horribly impatient; he had shaken every window-bar for the hundredth time; and for the hundredth time also, with the heel of his boot, had sounded every slab of the pavement, and every stone of the walls, but all were solid as a mass of rock. "Friend Thomas," said he, half banteringly and half savagely, on the thirteenth day of his confinement, "how long does that prince of villains, thy master, mean to keep me here?" "As long as he pleases, I suppose." "A vague term, that--most unpleasantly so. I should like much to have been a little consulted in the matter; but as he omitted this politeness, I mean to escape on the first opportunity, and without formality." "Escape?" reiterated Trotter, with a grin. "The walls----" "Are six feet thick, and the window hath three bars, ilk ane like the shaft of my Jethart staff." "Yes; but some day I may pull out the stones of the wall, or saw through the bars of the window. Have you never heard of such things?" "Ay have I, when a man had saws or files, or hammers, but never when he had only his bare hands and nails." "I will steal a knife from you." "Will you?" said Trotter, with his knowing wink. "Thou shalt see; and once through the window, I will drop----" "Into the draw-well! Ha! ha! my bauld buckie, the draw-well, forty feet deep, is just below it." "What? Just under my window?" "Eight doon, as a plummet would sink." "Ah, the devil! What a judicious villain thy master is!" "You see, sir, that unless you could change yoursel' into a spider or a bumbee, here you maun just bide," replied Tam, with a loud laugh, which galled the earl to the soul; but seeing the futility of anger or hauteur, he controlled his rising temper, and said, in his usual manner-- "Well, let me have dinner; for assuredly I am weary of having nothing to look forward to, but from breakfast to dinner, at mid-day; from dinner to supper, at even; and from supper to bed--and so on. I assure you, friend Trotter, it would tire even a Carthusian." "And tiresome I find it, too! Cocksnails! I would gie my very lugs to be again kicking my heels owre Currie Brig, or Kinleith Craig, for I am wearied o' holding watch and ward here, like the javellour of a tolbooth or the warder of a tower."