("Yet I see no marks of Otterstone about him," muttered Kate to herself. "How beautiful he is, maugre his disguise! Had he come on a message of love, in place of war, I would have taken him prisoner, and bound him with the rays of light that come from my languishing eyes.") "That's dear, man," said Innerkepple. "But ye're a cunning rogue; if I keep drinking at this rate, the price will sink as the flavour rises, and ye'll catch me, as men do gudgeons, by the tongue." "Aha! _mon cher_ Innerkepple," said the merchant, "you have von excellent humour of fun about ye. If I vere not _un pauvre merchand_, I would have one grand plaisir in getting _mouillé_--I mean drunk--vit you." ("Ha! my treacherous Adonis, art on that tack, with a foul wind in thy fair face?" was Kate's mental ejaculation. "If thou nearest thy haven, I am a worse pilot than Palinurus.") "Wi' wine like that before ane," responded the baron, "the topers alongside o' ye may be Frenchmen or Dutchmen, warriors or warlocks, wraiths or wassailers, merchants or mahouns--a's alike. It will put a soul into a ghaist, a yearning heart into a gowl, and a spirit o' nobility in the breast o' ane wha never quartered arms but wi' the fair anes o' flesh an' bluid that belang to his wife. I'll be oblivious o' a' warldly things before Kate's sandals come frae Selkirk; but yer price, man, I fear, will stick to me to the end." "I cannot make one deduction," said the merchant, "but I vill give to the men in the base-court one jolly debauch of very good vin, vich is in my hampers." ("The kaim of chanticleer is in the wind's eye," muttered Katherine. "Thou pointest nobly for the direction of treachery; but my sandals will be back from Selkirk long before I am obliged to march with thee to the prison of Otterstone.") "Weel, mak it a merk," said Innerkepple, "for five pints, an' a bouse to my retainers, wha are as muckle beloved by me as if they were my bairns; an' I will close wi' ye." "Vell, that is one covenant _inter nous_," said the merchant; "but I cannot return to Berwick until _demain_--I mean the morrow; and we vill have the long night for one jolly carousal. I vill go _sans delai_, and give the poor fellows, in the meantime, one leetle tasting of the grand cheer." ("Then I am too long here," muttered Kate. "Alexander told his men that the Persian stream was poisonous, to prevent them from stopping to drink, whereby they would have fallen into the hands of the enemy. One not less than he--ha! ha!--will save her men, by telling them there is treachery in the cup.")