"Is that thy master's horn, Symon?" asked the treacherous laird.
"I dinna ken, Millheugh," replied Symon, arming his right hand with a tankard, the contents of which he had just drained, and the creamy froth of which covered all his Bardolph nose and grizzly-grey moustache; "but he must be here ere midday pass."!
"Claude Hamilton here!" thought Florence, as the blood rushed back upon his heart; "one house can never hold us—with these people, too! Oh, mother! to-morrow you may say your mass-prayers for my butchery. Millheugh must know of our feud, and yet he told me not he was expected here!"
"If he come not speedily," continued the jesting ruffian, "woe worth all the breakfast he is likely to get; but the loss o' it will be a just punishment, as I ken he eats beef and mutton in Lenten-time, instead of kail and green herbs, for the gude o' his soul."
"What the deil hae our souls to do wi' kail, or beef, or mutton, Millheugh, whate'er our appetites may?" asked Symon Brodie; "a gude appetite is a sign o' a gude conscience. There sounds the horn again!"
"A Lollard, hey?" exclaimed Millheugh; "thou hast heard Friar Forest preach, I warrant."
"I heard him preach, and saw him burned at a stake on the Castle Hill."
"Take ye care then, Symon, for there are faggots for those who speak like thee; and a butler will burn as well as a friar."
"Indubitably."
"Make way, fellows!" exclaimed Florence, lunging at Millheugh with his sword; "make me way, or your lives are not worth a dog's ransom. 'Tis well for thee, and such as thee, Symon Brodie, that the terror of the scoffer and the impious, Cardinal Beaton, is in his grave!"