The advocate began to fear that Vipont had proved victorious, and either killed or captured his assailants. In either case Redhall knew well suspicions would fall heavily upon himself, for ever since the murder of the Knight of Bombie, at the north door of St. Giles's, he had borne a somewhat evil repute in the minds of many. He glared impatiently at a large dialstone on a house opposite; it indicated the meridian, and he was about to buckle on his sword and poniard, preparatory to issuing forth in search of news, when heavy and irregular steps were heard ascending the stair; a coarse and muscular hand made several ineffectual attempts to raise the arras, a movement which nearly caused the owner to topple over on his nose, and half scrambling in, Nichol Birrel, balancing himself on each leg alternately, and looking rather discomposed from the potations and encounter of the past night, stood before his feudal lord and judicial patron. "How now, thou presumptuous villain!" said Redhall, looking round for his cane, "is it thus thou appearest before me?" "Ay, ay--just as you see," hiccupped Nichol. "Drunk?" "Rather so, Sir Adam--that is--my lord." "Sot! I verily believe thou wert born drunk. And where, then, is this Vipont now?" "I neither ken nor care, for he escaped us." "Am I then to believe, sot and slug-a-bed, that with all thy boasting thou hast failed?" "Even so, in part." "Dog! I will have your ears cut off for this." "Bide ye there, Sir Adam," said the ruffian, deprecatingly, while he ground his teeth at his master's anger, "I have gien him a wound that he will carry to his grave; but God's plague on your feuds, Redhall, for in your service I have gotten a slash o' the knuckles that shall gar me rue lang the last night." "Here is a pretty rascal;" exclaimed the advocate, almost beside himself with anger. "I would some douce damsel said as muckle," said this overgrown gnome, contemplating his visage with one of his frightful leers, in a mirror opposite. "Peace, fellow! And thou livest to tell me that he actually escaped from three of ye? He must be the very devil himself, this Roland Vipont! Have you all returned alive?" "All: Nichol, Dobbie, and Sanders Screw--safe and sound, like the three kings of Cologne in the Black Friary up bye there." "Silence! 'tis blasphemy, this." "Murder at night, and blasphemy in the morning! Ewhow, sirs, but that d--d mum-beer was strong yesternight." "Thou gavest him a wound, thou sayest?" resumed Redhall, whose strong and relentless mind was of that description which, when once it conceived an idea, would pursue its accomplishment to the very verge of the earth; and, moreover, feeling confident that those laws which he meted out so severely to others, could never recoil upon or entangle himself, he did whatever he pleased. "Was this wound a deep one?"