"But the veal and the ducks?"
"I fished for one, and borrowed the other—but here come our gentlemen."
Roland gave Lintstock one of the flasks to rejoice over, and laughed. He knew well what the old forager meant, for the royal poultry-yard was close by, and Lintstock, with a piece of meat tied to a string, as a lure for King James's full-fed ducks, had many a time and oft towed them in at the back-windows, with outspread wings; and more than one dozen of fowls had disappeared thus, to the astonishment of the royal poulterer.
"But the pigeons?"
"I shot with my arblast at Redhall's dovecot."
"And the eels?"
"I borrowed them frae the abbot's eel-arks, at the Canonmills loch."
"Mass! thou'st had a busy day on't. Never mind; when I have the mains of Ashkirk with—tush, I will repay all these debts and borrowings with usury."
With a towel under his arm, the old gunner drew himself up like a post, as the two cavaliers entered, attired in velvets richly laced and slashed, and looking very gay and smiling.
"Welcome, Sir John Forrester!—and thou too, my gay Leslie! Ah! where didst get that scratch on thy nose?"