your language."

"Not when I have well considered them," said the Master.

"Then you are a little wiser than I am, for I always give my friend
satisfaction first, and explanation afterwards. If one of us falls, all
accounts are settled; if not, men are never so ready for peace as after
war. But what does that bawling brat of a boy want?" said Bucklaw. "I
wish to Heaven he had come a few minutes sooner! and yet it must have
been ended some time, and perhaps this way is as well as any other."

As he spoke, the boy he mentioned came up, cudgelling an ass, on which
he was mounted, to the top of its speed, and sending, like one of
Ossian's heroes, his voice before him: "Gentlemen--gentlemen, save
yourselves! for the gudewife bade us tell ye there were folk in her
house had taen Captain Craigengelt, and were seeking for Bucklaw, and
that ye behoved to ride for it." "By my faith, and that's very true, my
man" said Bucklaw; "and there's a silver sixpence for your news, and I
would give any man twice as much would tell me which way I should ride."

"That will I, Bucklaw," said Ravenswood; "ride home to Wolf's Crag with
me. There are places in the old tower where you might lie hid, were a
thousand men to seek you."

"But that will bring you into trouble yourself, Master; and unless you
be in the Jacobite scrape already, it is quite needless for me to drag
you in."

"Not a whit; I have nothing to fear."

"Then I will ride with you blythely, for, to say the truth, I do not
know the rendezvous that Craigie was to guide us to this night; and I am
sure that, if he is taken, he will tell all the truth of me, and twenty
lies of you, in order to save himself from the withie."

They mounted and rode off in company accordingly, striking off the
ordinary road, and holding their way by wild moorish unfrequented paths,
with which the gentlemen were well acquainted from the exercise of
the chase, but through which others would have had much difficulty in
tracing their course. They rode for some time in silence, making such
haste as the condition of Ravenswood's horse permitted, until night
having gradually closed around them, they discontinued their speed, both
from the difficulty of discovering their path, and from the hope that
they were beyond the reach of pursuit or observation.

"And now that we have drawn bridle a bit," said Bucklaw, "I would fain
ask you a question, Master."

"Ask and welcome," said Ravenswood, "but forgive n