"And I thine, Halbert Elshender; I am one of Lord Dunbarton's men."
"Welcome, Mr. Fenton!" exclaimed Hab, undoing the door briskly; "I wish you much joy of being out of yonder devilish scrape."
"How are you back so soon, Hab? By my faith, I thought you were browbeating the westland Whigs, and roystering at free quarters among the stiffnecked carles of Clydesdale."
"And so we were, sir, for three blessed weeks. Cocks' nails! ilka man was lord and master, and mair of the billet he had, loundering the gudeman, kissing the gudewife, and eating the best in cellar and ambrie, and then settling the lawing with a flash of a bare blade or a roll on the drum, as Finland and yourself have dune too. But hech! things are likely to be otherwise; it's a bad sign when the nonconformist bodies begin to cock their bonnets in face of the king's soldiers, as they are doing now."
"Ay, 'tis thought there will be the devil to pay between King James and the English, who were ever jealous of the Stuart rule. The Ladies of Bruntisfield are here, are they not?"
"Maybe sae, and maybe nae," replied Hab cunningly, still keeping his match cocked.
"How!" asked Walter, frowning, upon which Elsie cried in great alarm,
"Eh, sirs,—Hab, Hab, ye gomeral, speak the gentleman fair."
"To be plain, Mr. Fenton," asked Halbert bluntly, "came ye here as friend or foe?"
"A late question, when I am within arm's length of you. Halbert Elshender, I pledge my honour I am here in honest friendship."