“When I joined Middleton's horse and accepted service under you, I held you to be at least a gentleman,” was his daring rejoinder.
For an instant that dangerous light gleamed again from his companion's eye. Then, as before, the lids drooped, and, as before, he laughed.
“Gentleman!” he mocked. “On my soul, that's good! And what may you know of gentlemen, Sir Scot? Think you a gentleman is a Jack Presbyter, or a droning member of your kirk committee, strutting it like a crow in the gutter? Gadswounds, boy, when I was your age, and George Villiers lived—”
“Oh, have done!” broke in the youth impetuously. “Suffer me to leave you, Sir Crispin, to your bottle, your croaking, and your memories.”
“Aye, go your ways, sir; you'd be sorry company for a dead man—the sorriest ever my evil star led me into. The door is yonder, and should you chance to break your saintly neck on the stairs, it is like to be well for both of us.”
And with that Sir Crispin Galliard lay back in his chair once more, and took up the thread of his interrupted song
But, heigh-o! she cried, at the Christmas-tide,
That dead she would rather be-O!
Pale and wan she crept out of sight, and wept
'Tis a sorry—
A loud knock that echoed ominously through the mean chamber, fell in that instant upon the door. And with it came a panting cry of—
“Open, Cris! Open, for the love of God!”
Sir Crispin's ballad broke off short, whilst the lad paused in the act of quitting the room, and turned to look to him for direction.