company in the castle at present, and the terms upon which we last
parted must excuse my asking you to make part of them."

Craigengelt, although possessing the very perfection of impudence, was
somewhat abashed by this unfavourable reception. "He had no intention,"
he said, "to force himself upon the Master of Ravenswood's hospitality;
he was in the honourable service of bearing a message to him from a
friend, otherwise the Master of Ravenswood should not have had reason to
complain of this intrusion."

"Let it be short, sir," said the Master, "for that will be the best
apology. Who is the gentleman who is so fortunate as to have your
services as a messenger?"

"My friend, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw," answered Craigengelt, with
conscious importance, and that confidence which the acknowledged courage
of his principal inspired, "who conceives himself to have been treated
by you with something much short of the respect which he had reason to
demand, and, therefore is resolved to exact satisfaction. I bring with
me," said he, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket, "the precise
length of his sword; and he requests you will meet him, accompanied by
a friend, and equally armed, at any place within a mile of the castle,
when I shall give attendance as umpire, or second, on his behoof."

"Satisfaction! and equal arms!" repeated Ravenswood, who, the reader
will recollect, had no reason to suppose he had given the slightest
offence to his late intimate; "upon my word, Captain Craigengelt, either
you have invented the most improbable falsehood that ever came into the
mind of such a person, or your morning draught has been somewhat of the
strongest. What could persuade Bucklaw to send me such a message?"

"For that, sir," replied Craigengelt, "I am desired to refer you to
what, in duty to my friend, I am to term your inhospitality in excluding
him from your house, without reasons assigned."

"It is impossible," replied the Master; "he cannot be such a fool as to
interpret actual necessity as an insult. Nor do I believe that, knowing
my opinion of you, Captain, he would have employed the services of so
slight and inconsiderable a person as yourself upon such an errand, as I
certainly could expect no man of honour to act with you in the office of
umpire."

"I slight and inconsiderable?" said Craigengelt, raising his voice, and
laying his hand on his cutlass; "if it were not that the quarrel of
my friend craves the precedence