lers yonder of Auld Reekie. Pooh! pooh! they dared not keep me a
week of days in durance. A certain person has better friends among them
than you wot of, and can serve a friend when it is least likely."

"Pshaw!" answered Hayston, who perfectly knew and thoroughly despised
the character of this man, "none of your cogging gibberish; tell me
truly, are you at liberty and in safety?"

"Free and safe as a Whig bailie on the causeway of his own borough, or a
canting Presbyterian minister in his own pulpit; and I came to tell you
that you need not remain in hiding any longer."

"Then I suppose you call yourself my friend, Captain Craigengelt?" said
Bucklaw.

"Friend!" replied Craigengelt, "my cock of the pit! why, I am thy very
Achates, man, as I have heard scholars say--hand and glove--bark and
tree--thine to life and death!"

"I'll try that in a moment," answered Bucklaw. "Thou art never without
money, however thou comest by it. Lend me two pieces to wash the dust
out of these honest fellows' throats in the first place, and then----"

"Two pieces! Twenty are at thy service, my lad, and twenty to back
them."

"Ay, say you so?" said Bucklaw, pausing, for his natural penetration led
him to suspect some extraordinary motive lay couched under an excess of
generosity. "Craigengelt, you are either an honest fellow in right good
earnest, and I scarce know how to believe that; or you are cleverer than
I took you for, and I scarce know how to believe that either."

"L'un n'empeche pas l'autre," said Craigengelt. "Touch and try; the gold
is good as ever was weighed."

He put a quantity of gold pieces into Bucklaw's hand, which he thrust
into his pocket without either counting or looking at them, only
observing, "That he was so circumstanced that he must enlist, though
the devil offered the press-money"; and then turning to the huntsmen, he
called out, "Come along, my lads; all is at my cost."

"Long life to Bucklaw!" shouted the men of the chase.

"And confusion to him that takes his share of the sport, and leaves the
hunters as dry as a drumhead," added another, by way of corollary.

"The house of Ravenswood was ance a gude and an honourable house in
this land," said an old man; "but it's lost its credit this day, and the
Master has shown himself no better than a greedy cullion."

And with this conclusion, which was unanimously agreed to by all who
heard it, they rushed tumultuously into the house of entertainment,
whe