"And dost think, rascal, that I believe one word of this precious Tale of a Tub, foisted up to deceive me, for time spent in the village change-house yonder! Ha, knave! remember the old saw--Good wine makes a bad head and a long story." "My Lord, as I left the place, auld Gilruth cried, 'A safe ride to ye, Juden,' and her eldritch laugh is yet dingling in my lugs." "That makes it a clear case o' withcraft," mumbled Mersington, who was now very tipsy. "He-he!--we'll hae the carlin before us in the morning, Juden. Ay, my Lords (macers, silence in court!), this is as clear a case o' witchcraft as ever came before us--and the Act under Queen Mary (puir woman) anent sorcery bears just upon it. Your Lordships will remember," continued the senator, who thought himself on the bench, "the cases o' Isabel Eliot and Marion Campbell, twa notorious witches, who, for renouncing their baptism, and dancing a jig wi' the deil, were burnt at the Cross wi' ten others in the September o' seventy-eight, for whilk see the Record o' Justiciary--hee-hee, a braw bleeze!" "I will show a blaze on the Burghmuir to-night worth a dozen of it--ha, ha!" laughed Clermistonlee, as he drew on his voluminous boot-tops of stamped maroquin with silver bosses. "O'd, Clermistonlee, do ye really mean to burn Elshender's cottage?" asked Juden with delight. "Yea, sink me! from rigging-tree to ground-stone." Juden rubbed his hands. "If the auld witch is bed-ridden," said he, "it will save the Provost a bundle o' tar-barrels, forbye a pock o' peats." "And perhaps cure those spells which you think the hag hath cast upon my best nag? And so, Mersington, you will not ride with us to-night?" "No, by my faith!" "Then your learned Lordship forgets one notable point of our old Scottish law, by which a guest becomes the bounden ally of his host." "True; but only if loons come against him wi' harness on--boden in effeir o' weir, as the Acts have it." "As the chase after Lilian may be a hot one, omit not to spread most industriously that I am gone to the west, to England, to the devil, or any where, to put them off the right scent--ha, ha! while I am luxuriating in the smiles of Venus in the recesses of my snug old house over the hill there. Dost hear me? By Jove, he's very drunk. Fetch me a tass of brandy and burnt sugar, Juden." It was brought immediately, in one of those long glasses then made at the citadel of Leith. It set Clermistonlee's impatient blood on fire. "Another for thyself, Juden, and then to horse, and away. Your servant, gossip Mersington: if unfortunate, you will see me in the course of to-morrow; if otherwise, the devil knows when. Marriage and hanging go by destiny--so do all other things--with a hey lilleu and a how lo lan."