Ingles came staggering up with them. “Weel, Master Skinflint, what say you to it the day? This is a pleasant journey, is it not? Eh?—I say, Master, what do they call you! Peal–an’–eat, answer me in this—you see—I say—Is it not delightful? Eh?” “Certainly, sir,” said the weaver, who wished to be quit of him; “very delightful to those who feel it so.” “_Feel_ it so!—D‑‑n you, sirrah, what do you mean by that? Do you know who you are speaking to? Eh?—Answer me in this—What do you mean by _Feel it so_? Eh?” “I meant nothing,” returned the weaver, somewhat snappishly, “but that kind of respect which I always pay to gentry like you.” “Gentry like me!—D‑‑n you, sir, if you speak such a—Eh?—Gentry like me!—I’ll spit you like a cock pheasant—Eh? Have you any of them in Galloway? Answer me in this, will you? Eh?” “I’ll answer any reasonable thing, sir,” said the poor weaver. “Hout! never head the creature, man,” said Walter; “it’s a poor drunken senseless beast of a thing.” Ingles fixed his reeling unsteady eyes upon him, filled with drunken rage—walked on, spitting and looking across the way for a considerable space—“What the devil of a whig camel is this?” said he, crossing over to Walter’s side. “Drunken senseless beast of a thing! Holm, did you hear that?—Macwhinny, did you?—Eh? I’ll scorn to shoot the cusser, though I could do it—Eh? But I’ll kick him like a dog—Eh?—Take that, and that, will you? Eh?” And so saying, he kicked our proud–hearted and independant Goodman of Chapelhope with his plebeian foot, staggering backward each time he struck. Walter’s spirit could not brook this; and disregardful of all consequences, he wheeled about with his face toward him, dragging the weaver round with a jerk, as a mastiff sometimes does a spaniel that is coupled to him; and, as Ingles threw up his foot to kick him on the belly, he followed up his heel with his foot, giving him such a fling upwards as made him whirl round in the air like a reel. He fell on his back, and lay motionless; on which, several of the party of soldiers levelled their muskets at Walter. “Ay, shoot,” said he, setting up his boardly breast to them—“Shoot at me if you dare, the best o’ ye.” The soldiers cocked their pieces. “Your Colonel himsel durstna wrang a hair o’ my head, though fain he wad hae done sae, without first gieing me ower to his betters—Let me see if a scullion amang ye a’ dare do mair than he.”