"Enough!" he cried; "hold your hands, Wat. Could you not have said as much at first, and not stood gaping there like a week-old corpse done up in a winding-sheet?"
"Thou donnert ass!" cried Wat. "Will you come with me on my quest, or will you bide on here in Amersfort among putty-souled huxters teaching shambling recruits how to stand upon their legs?"
"Of a truth, Buchan's knaves are indeed most hopeless. Yet whither can I go? I know not of a better service," said Scarlett, shaking his head doubtfully.
"But the adventure, man," cried Wat; "think of the adventure over seas, through continents, upon far islands, all in quest of a true lass that hath been trapped by devils, and may be treated most uncivilly. It makes me mad!"
"All these are most extremely well for you, Wat Gordon of Lochinvar. You are a younger man, and these bones of mine like well to lie on a soft bed at my age. Also, and chiefly, the lass is your lass, and not mine. Were you to find her to-morrow, what should I get out of all the errant jackassery in the world?"
"John Scarlett," cried Wat, nodding his head, solemnly, "thy heart is grown no better than a chunk of fat lard. There is no spirit in thee any more. Go, turn over on thy side and snore, till it be time to go forth once more to drill thy rotten sheep's regiment. God kens, 'tis all you are good for now, to be bell-wether to such a shuffling, clod-hopping crew. 'Keep your head up! Fall not over your musket! Prod up that man in the rear! I pray you do not hold your gun as if it were a dandling baby! March!' Pshaw! John Scarlett, is that the life for a man or for a puddle-rolling pig of the stye?"
Scarlett appeared to consider. He looked at the nails in the sole of his boot with an air of grave deliberation, as if they could help him to a decision.
"'Tis true, in truth most truly true," he said, "it is a dog's life. But, after all, there is ever the chance of war."
"War? And will not I give thee wars to fill thy belly, and leave something over for stuffing to thy calves?" cried Wat. "Why, man, thy sword will never be in its sheath—fighting, seeking, spying, we will overpass land and sea, hiding by heather and hill, creeping down by the bonny burnside to win our speckled breakfasts out of the pools—"
"Tush, man," answered Scarlett, pettishly, "for all you know, your Kate may be shut up in the next street. And besides, as I said, after all, she is your lass, not mine."