ain, "and to thee, my lad of lands, my
darling boy, whom I would tramp barefooted through the world for! Name
time, place, mode, and circumstances, and see if I will not be useful in
all uses that can be devised."

"Why, then, you must ride two hundred miles for me," said the patron.

"A thousand, and call them a flea's leap," answered the dependant; "I'll
cause saddle my horse directly."

"Better stay till you know where you are to go, and what you are to
do," quoth Bucklaw. "You know I have a kinswoman in Northumberland, Lady
Blenkensop by name, whose old acquaintance I had the misfortune to lose
in the period of my poverty, but the light of whose countenance shone
forth upon me when the sun of my prosperity began to arise."

"D--n all such double-faced jades!" exclaimed Craigengelt, heroically;
"this I will say for John Craigengelt, that he is his friend's friend
through good report and bad report, poverty and riches; and you know
something of that yourself, Bucklaw."

"I have not forgot your merits," said his patron; "I do remember that,
in my extremities, you had a mind to CRIMP me for the service of the
French king, or of the Pretender; and, moreover, that you afterwards
lent me a score of pieces, when, as I firmly believe, you had heard the
news that old Lady Girnington had a touch of the dead palsy. But don't
be downcast, John; I believe, after all, you like me very well in your
way, and it is my misfortune to have no better counsellor at present.
To return to this Lady Blenkensop, you must know, she is a close
confederate of Duchess Sarah."

"What! of Sall Jennings?" exclaimed Craigengelt; "then she must be a
good one."

"Hold your tongue, and keep your Tory rants to yourself, if it be
possible," said Bucklaw. "I tell you, that through the Duchess of
Marlborough has this Northumbrian cousin of mine become a crony of Lady
Ashton, the Keeper's wife, or, I may say, the Lord Keeper's Lady Keeper,
and she has favoured Lady Blenkensop with a visit on her return from
London, and is just now at her old mansion-house on the banks of the
Wansbeck. Now, sir, as it has been the use and wont of these ladies to
consider their husbands as of no importance in the management of their
own families, it has been their present pleasure, without consulting
Sir William Ashton, to put on the tapis a matrimonial alliance, to be
concluded between Lucy Ashton and my own right honourable self, Lady
Ashton acting as self-constitute