that is the thing that would wanton me."

"You may sing as loudly as you will, cantabit vacuus----," answered the
Master; "but I believe the Marquis is too wise, at least too wary, to
join you in such a burden. I suspect he alludes to a revolution in the
Scottish privy council, rather than in the British kingdoms."

"Oh, confusion to your state tricks!" exclaimed Bucklaw--"your cold
calculating manoeuvres, which old gentlemen in wrought nightcaps
and furred gowns execute like so many games at chess, and displace a
treasurer or lord commissioner as they would take a rook or a pawn.
Tennis for my sport, and battle for my earnest! And you, Master, so dep
and considerate as you would seem, you have that within you makes
the blood boil faster than suits your present humour of moralising on
political truths. You are one of those wise men who see everything with
great composure till their blood is up, and then--woe to any one who
should put them in mind of their own prudential maxims!" "Perhaps," said
Ravenswood, "you read me more rightly than I can myself. But to think
justly will certainly go some length in helping me to act so. But hark!
I hear Caleb tolling the dinner-bell."

"Which he always does with the more sonorous grace in proportion to the
meagreness of the cheer which he has provided," said Bucklaw; "as if
that infernal clang and jangle, which will one day bring the belfry
down the cliff, could convert a starved hen into a fat capon, and a
blade-bone of mutton into a haunch of venison."

"I wish we may be so well off as your worst conjectures surmise,
Bucklaw, from the extreme solemnity and ceremony with which Caleb seems
to place on the table that solitary covered dish."

"Uncover, Caleb! uncover, for Heaven's sake!" said Bucklaw; "let us have
what you can give us without preface. Why, it stands well enough, man,"
he continued, addressing impatiently the ancient butler, who, without
reply, kept shifting the dish, until he had at length placed it with
mathematical precision in the very midst of the table.

"What have we got here, Caleb?" inquired the Master in his turn.

"Ahem! sir, ye suld have known before; but his honour the Laird of
Bucklaw is so impatient," answered Caleb, still holding the dish with
one hand and the cover with the other, with evident reluctance to
disclose the contents.

"But what is it, a God's name--not a pair of clean spurs, I hope, in the
Border fashion of old times?"

"Ahem! a