I thought within me what a strange old scare-the-crows this was, to have the name and style of knighthood. So I asked him what were his ancestral possessions. ’I am only poor Sir Thomas Tode, chaplain to two mighty Earls,’ he said, shaking his head and waggling his top-knot, till he looked more like the father of all the apes that ever were, than a sober cleric. ’Even so,’ he went on, ’I was bred to Holy Church—I mean brought up in ignorance, to serve the Whore that sitteth on the Seven Hills. I was chaplain to the old Lord Gilbert, the father of the Earl John that is. Ah, many a time did I shrive him soundly, and none needed it more. Faith, but he was a ripe, crusted old sinner—’ And Sir Thomas Tode chuckled a senile laugh at his memories of the bygone wickednesses of the great. ’Faith, I doubt shrewdly that he fries for it now. For in these days there are no prayers to hoist men out of purgatory by the telling down of the good broad bonnet pieces—more’s the pity for poor honest churchmen! Ah me, the times that were! The times that were!’ The old man paused a moment to think the matter over, and then very visibly his mind went wandering after some greater and yet choicer wickedness which he might retail to me. ’Have you ever heard,’ he said at last, ’of the roasting of the Abbot of Crossraguel? Man, I was there—yes, I was there—Tom Tode was there, and turned him on the iron brander till I burned my fingers!’ And the ancient rascal beat merrily on the floor with his stick and charked together his toothless gums. ’Now sit ye down, and I shall tell you all that took place in the Black Vaut of Dunure—’ Just then I saw a sonsy, red-faced woman, ample of bosom and with many plies of wylicoats pleated and gathered about her, rise from the black stair head—even as Dominie Mure fables that Venus (a heathen goddess, but one of whose ongoings I own it diverts me greatly to hear) did from the sea. With three strides she came across the hall and caught Sir Thomas Tode by the shock of yellow-white hair on his crown. ’Be you at it again?’ she cried. ’I will give you your fill of the Black Vaut of Dunure, doddering old bletherer that ye are. Who is to turn my spit, I would have you tell me, gin you waste your time yammering to wanchancy lazybones of the Black Vaut of Dunure? "Black Vaut of Dunure" indeed! You have told your lies till I declare you grow to believe them yourself!’ So without a word of protest from the knightly lips of Sir Thomas Tode, he was led below, his head nodding and bowing as his captor shook the yellow top-knot. After the pair were gone, I laughed both loud and long, so that they had to fetch me nigh on a gallon of strong ale to recover me of my access of mirth, and prepare me for the presence of the Earl.