"What are ye aboot, laddie?--are ye daft?" exclaimed Juden, wiping up the streaming liquor in a state of high excitement. "The best damask buirdclaith--he's gane clean wud! The last o' four dizzen o' my lady's Flanders plenishing--he's daft--keepit for high days. O Randal! hae some respect for yoursel', if you have nane for her whose bonnie hands worked your cypher in the corner o' this very buirdclaith."
"Silence, pest!" cried his master in a voice of thunder; but the destruction of the table-cloth was a matter of no small importance to the thrifty old butler, who continued to wipe and mutter,
"The damask buirdclaith--the best in the aik napery-kist--sae braw wi' its champit figures, the very ane that His Highness the Duke (James VII. that is now) dined off wi' Lag, Lauderdale, and the auld Laird. Fie upon ye, Clermistonlee! sic wickedness and waste would hae driven your faither daft--wae's me!"
"When you are, fool, go and bring the foils."
"Rascal, begone! or by----" Juden trotted off, napkin in hand, ere his passionate Lord could finish. He returned in a few minutes with foils, masks, and gloves. Clermistonlee then threw off his dressing-gown; and as he grasped one of the long heavy foils, his cheek reddened and his eye sparkled in anticipation of successful revenge and signal triumph.
"Now, Juden, my trusty knave," he began, in a milder tone; "you know that in my affair with this young minx, Lilian Napier--though I have been foiled in divers ways--that it would ill become me to draw bridle when such game is in view."
"Ay, my Lord; many a shy bird we have flown our hawks at, but never saw I ane that cost the trouble this pretty paroquet hath done."
"She loves a young spark of Dunbarton's Musqueteers--a nameless and beggarly varlet, who in infancy was found among the covenanting rabble in the Greyfriars kirkyard----"
"Aboot the time o' Bothwell--o'd I mind it weel."
"And, forsooth," continued the Lord, stamping with impatience, "Dunbarton's baby-faced Countess, in imitation of proud old Anne of Monmouth, would needs have a pretty page to hold up her train when she walked, sit by her knee in coach and boudoir, carry her lap-dog to church when the Bishop preached; to kiss her dainty hand at all times, and God knows what more.