"Ou aye--ou aye--he! he!" chuckled Mersington. "Hae her up before the fifteen--a full blawn case o' sorcery--on wi' the thumbikins! I have kent rack and screw bring mony a queer story to light:--riding to Banff on a besom-shank--sailing to the Inch in a milkbowie--bewitching wheels that ane minute flew round as if the mill was mad, and the next stood like the Bass rock--raising a storm o' wind in the lift by the damnable agency of a black beetle, 'ane golach,' as Rosehaugh called it in the indictment. We had a grand case o' that lately in the northern courts." "But the gude auld fashion o' tar-barrelling is clean gaing out in thae fushionless days," said Juden, whom Mersington treated with considerable familiarity. "We havena had a respectable bleeze on the Castle-hill these aucht years and mair." "You may chance to have one very shortly," replied his lord impatiently, "if Meg gets not the better of her ailings soon. But enough of this.--Let us to supper." "Bluid, as I live! Foul fa' the loon that shed it!" exclaimed Juden, in accents of intense concern, as his master drew off his perfumed gloves, and revealed the scar on his right hand. "Whatna collyshangie has this been, noo--and your braw mantle o' drab de Berrie--oh laddie, when will you learn to tak' care o' yoursel?" added honest Juden, who from force of habit still styled his lord as he had done thirty years ago. "Pshaw! you have seen my blood ere now, I suppose." "Owre often, owre often," groaned the old man. "You'll hae been keeping the croon o' the causeway, I warrant, majoring rapier in hand, as your faither was wont in his young days." "No, no; I merely measured swords in Gourlay's close with one of the Scots' musqueteers." "Aboot what? They're mad, unchancey chields, Dunbarton's men." "A girl--the cursed baggage!" "Burn my beard, if ever I saw dochter o' Eve that tempted me to encounter a slashed hide!" said Juden, with a tone of thankfulness, while his master tied a handkerchief round the wounded limb, and applied himself to the viands before him, attending to his friend with hospitality and politeness, and doing the honours of the table with peculiar grace. A roasted capon, mutton and cutlets, oysters fried and raw, a gigantic silver mug of brandy and burnt sugar, a tankard of sack, and several tall silver-mouthed decanters of claret, with manchets of the whitest flour, oaten cakes, and fruit, composed the supper, on sitting down to which, Lord Mersington, with an affected air and half-closed eyes, by way of grace mumbled a distich then common among the cavaliers-- "From Covenanters with uplifted hands, From Remonstrators with associate bands, From such Committees as governed these nations, From Kirk Commissions and their protestations, Good Lord, deliver us!' "Amen," said Clermistonlee, "d--n all Kirk Commissioners and Sessions too!"