s in waiting on each other?" said
Durward; "for I observed that Maitre Pierre would take nothing from your
hand, or that of your attendant."

"Rich men may have their fancies, for they can pay for them," said the
landlord; "this is not the first time Maitre Pierre has found the true
way to make gentlefolks serve at his beck."

The young Scotsman felt somewhat offended at the insinuation; but,
disguising his resentment, he asked whether he could be accommodated
with an apartment at this place for a day, and perhaps longer.

"Certainly," the innkeeper replied; "for whatever time he was pleased to
command it."

"Could he be permitted," he asked, "to pay his respects to the ladies,
whose fellow lodger he was about to become?"

The innkeeper was uncertain. "They went not abroad," he said, "and
received no one at home."

"With the exception, I presume, of Maitre Pierre?" said Durward.

"I am not at liberty to name any exceptions," answered the man, firmly
but respectfully.

Quentin, who carried the notions of his own importance pretty high,
considering how destitute he was of means to support them, being
somewhat mortified by the innkeeper's reply, did not hesitate to avail
himself of a practice common enough in that age. "Carry to the ladies,"
he said, "a flask of vernat, with my humble duty; and say that Quentin
Durward, of the house of Glen Houlakin, a Scottish cavalier of honour,
and now their fellow lodger, desires the permission to dedicate his
homage to them in a personal interview."

The messenger departed, and returned, almost instantly, with the thanks
of the ladies, who declined the proffered refreshment, and, with their
acknowledgments to the Scottish cavalier, regretted that, residing there
in privacy, they could not receive his visit.

Quentin bit his lip, took a cup of the rejected vernat, which the host
had placed on the table. "By the mass, but this is a strange country,"
said he to himself, "where merchants and mechanics exercise the manners
and munificence of nobles, and little travelling damsels, who hold their
court in a cabaret [a public house], keep their state like disguised
princesses! I will see that black browed maiden again, or it will go
hard, however;" and having formed this prudent resolution, he demanded
to be conducted to the apartment which he was to call his own.

The landlord presently ushered him up a turret staircase, and from
thence along a gallery, with many doors opening f