Sergeant Bothwell did not fail to take the lady at her word, and readily forgot the height from which his family had descended, in a joyous carousal, during which Mr Harrison exerted himself to produce the best wine in the cellar, and to excite his guest to be merry by that seducing example, which, in matters of conviviality, goes farther than precept. Old Gudyill associated himself with a party so much to his taste, pretty much as Davy, in the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, mingles in the revels of his master, Justice Shallow. He ran down to the cellar at the risk of breaking his neck, to ransack some private catacomb, known, as he boasted, only to himself, and which never either had, or should, during his superintendence, renden forth a bottle of its contents to any one but a real king’s friend. “When the Duke dined here,” said the butler, seating himself at a distance from the table, being somewhat overawed by Bothwell’s genealogy, but yet hitching his seat half a yard nearer at every clause of his speech, “my leddy was importunate to have a bottle of that Burgundy,”--(here he advanced his seat a little,)--“but I dinna ken how it was, Mr Stewart, I misdoubted him. I jaloused him, sir, no to be the friend to government he pretends: the family are not to lippen to. That auld Duke James lost his heart before he lost his head; and the Worcester man was but wersh parritch, neither gude to fry, boil, nor sup cauld.” (With this witty observation, he completed his first parallel, and commenced a zigzag after the manner of an experienced engineer, in order to continue his approaches to the table.) “Sae, sir, the faster my leddy cried ‘Burgundy to his Grace--the auld Burgundy--the choice Burgundy--the Burgundy that came ower in the thirty-nine’--the mair did I say to mysell, Deil a drap gangs down his hause unless I was mair sensible o’ his principles; sack and claret may serve him. Na, na, gentlemen, as lang as I hae the trust o’butler in this house o’Tillietudlem, I’ll tak it upon me to see that nae disloyal or doubtfu’ person is the better o’ our binns. But when I can find a true friend to the king and his cause, and a moderate episcopacy; when I find a man, as I say, that will stand by church and crown as I did mysell in my master’s life, and all through Montrose’s time, I think there’s naething in the cellar ower gude to be spared on him.” By this time he had completed a lodgment in the body of the place, or, in other words, advanced his seat close to the table. “And now, Mr Francis Stewart of Bothwell, I have the honour to drink your gude health, and a commission t’ye, and much luck may ye have in raking this country clear o’whigs and roundheads, fanatics and Covenanters.”