"To the letter o' the law, as my lord Mersington says. I have made Lady Grisel's servitors as fu' as strong October, reeking usquebaugh, ay, and a three gallon runlet of gude red Rhenish, at sixpence the quart, could make them. But then, by way o' repaying my hospitality, they began misnaming your Lordship." "What said the knaves?" "That ye were but a cock-laird o' Cramond, for a' your baron's coronet, and a fause whig and misleared covenanter at heart." "Foh! it matters not," replied Clermistonlee. "I will have all those varlets under my thumb ere long, and then I will teach them the respect that is due to my coronet. A cock-laird! By all the devils, they shall have their tongues bodkinned, and their ears nailed to the Tron, as a terror to all such plebeian rascals. But what didst thou, and this great baboon thy nephew, when these rascals made so free with our family?" "We sweeped the house wi' the hair o' their heads--eh, Jock?" "Ay," gaped the personage appealed to. "My birse rose at the first word, and drawing my whinger, I fell on like a Stenton. Jock threw owre the buird and settles, and laid about him wi' a three-leggit stule. The gudewife o' the change-house scraighed like a howlet, and a' gaed to wreck. Shelves o' dishes and tin flagons, caups and luggies, Leith crystal and Delft ware, iron pots and pewter trenchers, a' flew like a hailstorm, and we laid about us like naething that I mind o', but the tulzie at Bothwell, when Dalyel's troopers broke the brig-ward, and fell on us sword in hand." "Bothwell again! Rascal, how often must I tell thee to recur to those days no more?" "In burst the toun-guard, wi' axe and pike, and carried them a' to the water-hole, as disturbers o' the peace." "And how did you escape?" "At the very sight o' the red wyvern on my sleeve, the loons let me go, as if my gude braid claith had been iron in a white heat: and sae I am here." "Excellent! for this night her people are safe. Thou art a priceless fellow, Juden." "When Lady Grisel's men were summoned, we changed our coats, and in their places came as ye see. We bore her awa to the Place o' Bruntisfield, and are now, by her orders, returned for Madam Lilian." "Heaven is propitious to me to-night. But I fear me, thy dullard of a nephew may spoil all." At that moment the voice of the earl's chamberlain was heard summoning "Mistress Napier's chair," and with much pretended bustle, Juden and his cunning nephew, in their assumed character of hack-chairmen, carried it up the broad flight of steps into the brilliantly-lighted lobby, while, with a beating heart, Clermistonlee withdrew a little, to observe the issue of his plans.