"Vy, _mon cher_ Innerkepple," replied the merchant, "did I not know that you were one grand biberon--I mean drinker of vin? It is known all over the marches--I mean the Bordures. Aha! no one Frenchman could cheat the famous Innerkepple; so I brought the best that was in all my celliers. Is it not grand and magnifique?" "Grand an' magnifique, man!" replied Innerkepple, as he sipped the wine with the gravity of a judge. "It's mair than a' that, man, if my tongue could coin a word to express its ain sense o' what it is at this moment enjoying. But the organ's stupified wi' sheer delight, and forgets its very mither's tongue; an' nae wonder, for my very een, that didna taste it, reel and get drunk wi' the sight." And the delighted baron took another pull of the goblet. "Aha! Innerkepple, you are von of the grandest biberons I have ever seen in all this contrée," said the merchant. "It is one great pleasir to trafique vit von so learned in the science of _bon gout_. That grand smack of your lips would tempt me to ruin myself, and drink mine own commodity." "Hae ye a stock o' the treasure?" said the baron; "I canna suppose it." "Just five barrils in my celliers at Berwick," answered the merchant, "containing quatre hundred pints de Paris in each one of them." "I could walk on my bare feet to Berwick to see it and taste it," said the baron; "but what clatter o' a horse's feet is that in the court, Kate?" "Ha! sure it is my mules," said the Frenchman, starting to his feet in alarm. "Oh! keep your seat, Monsieur Merchant," cried Kate, laughing and looking out of the window. "Can a lady not despatch her servitor to Selkirk for a pair of sandals, that should this day have been on my feet in place of in Gilbert Skinner's hands, without raising folks from their wine?" The Frenchman was satisfied, and retook his seat; but the baron looked at Kate, as if at a loss to know what freak had now come into her inventive head. The letting down of the drawbridge, and the sound of the horse's feet passing along the sounding wood, verified her statement, but carried no conviction to the mind of Innerkepple. He had long ceased, however, the vain effort to understand the workings of his daughter's mind, and on the present occasion he was occupied about too important a subject to be interested in the vagaries of a madcap wench. "By the Virgin!" she said again, "my jennet will lose her own sandals in going for mine, if Gregory thus strikes the rowels into her sides." Covering, by these words, the rapid departure of the messenger, she turned her eyes to continue the study of the merchant, whom she watched with feline assiduity. The conversation was again resumed. "Five barrels, said ye, Monsieur?" resumed Innerkepple. "Let me see--that, wi' what I hae mysel, may see me out; but it will be a guid heir-loom to Kate's husband. What is the price?" "One merk the gallon of four pints de Paris," answered the merchant.