"Yet 'tis very hard that no one will just fire one little shot at us, just to afford an excuse——"
"For blowing the house about their ears. A most amiable wish!"
"Thy nag looks weary, Leslie."
"Ah, 'tis a bay I picked up during our raid against the Annandale thieves last year. My blockhead of a groom lost me a beautiful roan horse at Leith, last Lammastide, where I sent it to be bathed, at sunset, in the sea."*
* A superstitious custom, suppressed, by order of St. Cuthbert's kirk session, in 1647.
"Where dost think we will dine, for my stomach crieth cupboard already?"
"At the Barmkyn of Cairntable. I have heard that the gudeman there keepeth open house and free; besides, he is a kinsman of Redhall, and if we empty his girnels and broach his casks, what matter? Is it not for the king's service? and all Scotland knows," added Roland, with a smile, "how zealous the advocate is for the public weal."
"Let us halt here for one moment," said Leslie, reining up his horse beside a little rustic well, which flowed near a cottage wall; "this water looks fresh and pure; 'tis south-running, too, and I am thirsty as a sack of flour."
"Lintstock, bring hither the flask of French brandy."
From a gun-carriage, Lintstock unslung a large leathern bottle, and brought it to his master, ogling it by the way with all the ardour of which his solitary eye was capable; and thereafter, from his havresack, he produced a beechwood luggie.