"Save us, friend Roland!" said Leslie; "thou art turning very religious."
"Is about to take such measures as shall assuredly exterminate the followers of those heretics, Resby, the Englishman, and the abbot of Fearn. Master Buchanan is now in the oubliette of St. Andrew's, where he will likely pay dearly for his satire Franciscanus."
"His eminence should confine himself to the pretty little amusements afforded by his country-house at Creich," said Forrester.
"Didst thou see that poor devil drowned to-day?"
"Who, Leslie?"
"He whom the king's advocate discovered burying a cat alive."
"Nay, I was hawking with the king on the Figgate-muir—the more fool I! Lintstock, thou knave!" cried Vipont to that functionary—who stood erect as a pike behind his chair—"uncork me half-a-dozen of these flasks. Drain, gentlemen, and replenish again; wine is a specific for care—worth a thousand homilies!"
"Lucky dog!" said Forrester; "thou drinkest out of horns hooped with silver, while I, who am lord of Corstorphine and Uchtertyre, must content me with plain beech luggies."
"Lintstock found them during our last raid into Westmoreland. Nevertheless, Sir John, thank Heaven that you were not, like me, born with a most portentous wooden spoon in your mouth. I was an unlucky brat, and cried, it seems, like a pagan at my baptism; a bad omen, as the Lady Ashkirk told me. Fill again; but excuse me—my wound, you know."
"Ah! that dainty dagger-thrust; but it is healing fast?"