hem!" reiterated Caleb, "your honour is pleased to be facetious;
natheless, I might presume to say it was a convenient fashion, and used,
as I have heard, in an honourable and thriving family. But touching your
present dinner, I judged that this being St. Magdalen's [Margaret's]
Eve, who was a worthy queen of Scotland in her day, your honours might
judge it decorous, if not altogether to fast, yet only to sustain nature
with some slight refection, as ane saulted herring or the like." And,
uncovering the dish, he displayed four of the savoury fishes which he
mentioned, adding, in a subdued tone, "that they were no just common
herring neither, being every ane melters, and sauted with uncommon care
by the housekeeper (poor Mysie) for his honour's especial use."

"Out upon all apologies!" said the Master, "let us eat the herrings,
since there is nothing better to be had; but I begin to think with you,
Bucklaw, that we are consuming the last green leaf, and that, in spite
of the Marquis's political machinations, we must positively shift camp
for want of forage, without waiting the issue of them."

CHAPTER IX.

Ay, and when huntsmen wind the merry horn,
And from its covert starts the fearful prey,
Who, warm'd with youth's blood in his swelling veins,
Would, like a lifeless clod, outstretched lie,
Shut out from all the fair creation offers?

Ethwald, Act I. Scene 1.

LIGHT meals procure light slumbers; and therefore it is not surprising
that, considering the fare which Caleb's conscience, or his necessity,
assuming, as will sometimes happen, that disguise, had assigned to the
guests of Wolf's Crag, their slumbers should have been short.

In the morning Bucklaw rushed into his host's apartment with a loud
halloo, which might have awaked the dead.

"Up! up! in the name of Heaven! The hunters are out, the only piece of
sport I have seen this month; and you lie here, Master, on a bed that
has little to recommend it, except that it may be something softer than
the stone floor of your ancestor's vault."

"I wish," said Ravenswood, raising his head peevishly, "you had forborne
so early a jest, Mr. Hayston; it is really no pleasure to lose the very
short repose which I had just begun to enjoy, after a night spent in
thoughts upon fortune far harder than my couch, Bucklaw."

"Pschaw, pshaw!" replied his guest; "get up--get up; the hounds are
abroad. I have saddled the horses myself, for old