"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."
"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!"
"The last keepit a firm hand owre such gallants as you, before King Charles cam' hame," replied Mersington, who, like all meagre men, was a great gourmand, and was doing ample justice to all the good things before him. Clermistonlee, too, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, did his part fairly--but all times were alike to him, his irregular habits and debauched life had by long custom made them so, and he assailed the capon, the cutlets, the oysters, and sack tankard, in rapid succession, while Juden stood behind his chair, napkin in hand, with eyes half-closed, and nodding head.
"Mersington, some more of the cutlets? My Lord, you must permit me--do justice to my poor house, a bachelor's though it be. Juden, hand that dish of Crail capons from the buffet."
The butler hastily placed before his master an ample dish containing a pile of small haddocks prepared in a mode now disused and forgotten.
"Crail capons--allow me to help you; and don't spare the burnt sack, my Lord."
"Thank ye:--weel, then, Clermistonlee, anent this business of the Napiers," said Mersington, referring to a former conversation; "what mean ye to do now, eh?"