Covenanters -- Fiction; Historical fiction; Scotland -- History -- Stuarts, to the Union, 1371-1707 -- Fiction
The remark, however, only served to give Winterton inward satisfaction,
and he replied with a laugh, that it made little odds to him where he
was sent, and that he'd as lief ride in Ayrshire as sorn about the
causey of Enbrough.
In this sort of talk and conference they rode on together, the o'ercome
every now and then of Winterton's discourse being concerning the proof
my grandfather carried with him, whereby the Lord Boyd would know he was
one of Glencairn's men. But, notwithstanding all his wiles and devices
to howk the secret out of him, his drift being so clearly discerned, my
grandfather was enabled to play with him till they were arrived at
Kilmarnock, where Winterton proposed to stop till he had delivered his
message to the Lord Boyd, at the Dean Castle.
"That surely cannot be," replied my grandfather; "for ye ken, as there
has been some mistak about the sign whereby I am to make myself known,
ye'll ha'e to come wi' me to expound, in case of need. In trooth, now
that we hae forgatherit, and as I ha'e but this ae message to a' the
shire of Ayr, I would fain ha'e your company till I see the upshot."
Winterton could not very easily make a refusal to this, but he hesitated
and swithered, till my grandfather urged him again;--when, seeing no
help for it, and his companion, as he thought, entertaining no suspicion
of him, he put on a bold face and went forward.
When they had come to the Dean Castle, which stands in a pleasant green
park about a mile aboon the town-head of Kilmarnock, on entering the
gate, my grandfather hastily alighted, and giving his horse a sharp
prick of his spur as he lap off, the beast ran capering out of his hand,
round the court of the castle.
With the well-feigned voice of great anxiety, my grandfather cried to
the servants to shut the gate and keep it in; and Winterton alighting,
ran to catch it, giving his own horse to a stripling to hold. At the
same moment, however, my grandfather sprung upon him, and seizing him by
the throat, cried out for help to master a spy.
Winterton was so confounded that he gasped and looked round like a man
demented, and my grandfather ordered him to be taken by the serving-men
to their master, before whom, when they were all come, he recounted the
story of his adventures with the prisoner, telling his Lordship what his
master, the Earl of Glencairn, suspected of him. To which, when
Winterton was asked what he had to say, he replied bravely, that it was
all true, and he was none ashamed to be so catched, when it was done by
so clever a fellow.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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