ugh," said the Master; "I suppose, at
least, you mean the quicksand betwixt this tower and Wolf's Hope; but
why any man in his senses should stable a steed there----"

"Oh, ever speer ony thing about that, sir--God forbid we should ken what
the prophecy means--but just bide you at hame, and let the strangers
ride to Ravenswood by themselves. We have done eneugh for them; and
to do mair would be mair against the credit of the family than in its
favour."

"Well, Caleb," said the Master, "I give you the best possible credit for
your good advice on this occasion; but as I do not go to Ravenswood to
seek a bride, dead or alive, I hope I shall choose a better stable for
my horse than the Kelpie's quicksand, and especially as I have always
had a particular dread of it since the patrol of dragoons were
lost there ten years since. My father and I saw them from the tower
struggling against the advancing tide, and they were lost long before
any help could reach them."

"And they deserved it weel, the southern loons!" said Caleb; "what had
they ado capering on our sands, and hindering a wheen honest folk frae
bringing on shore a drap brandy? I hae seen them that busy, that I
wad hae fired the auld culverin or the demi-saker that's on the south
bartizan at them, only I was feared they might burst in the ganging
aff."

Caleb's brain was now fully engaged with abuse of the English soldiery
and excisemen, so that his master found no great difficulty in
escaping from him and rejoining his guests. All was now ready for
their departure; and one of the Lord Keeper's grooms having saddled the
Master's steed, they mounted in the courtyard.

Caleb had, with much toil, opened the double doors of the outward gate,
and thereat stationed himself, endeavouring, by the reverential, and at
the same time consequential, air which he assumed, to supply, by his
own gaunt, wasted, and thin person, the absence of a whole baronial
establishment of porters, warders, and liveried menials.

The Keeper returned his deep reverence with a cordial farewell, stooping
at the same time from his horse, and sliding into the butler's hand the
remuneration which in those days was always given by a departing guest
to the domestics of the family where he had been entertained. Lucy
smiled on the old man with her usual sweetness, bade him adieu, and
deposited her guerdon with a grace of action and a gentleness of accent
which could not have failed to have won the fai