'What think ye, Launcelot? Why stand ye so moody?' my companion said to me.
I told him that I liked not much to tell him; that it was no fitting thought to tell a minister.
'Say on,' he said. 'I have listed to strange speeches in my time.'
'Well then, sir,' I made answer, 'I was thinking what a pity to see so many limber lads with stark pikes in their hands, and nobody a penny the worse! I would to God I had them in Carrick. John Mure of Auchendrayne would hear news of it right briskly.'
The minister clapped me on the back.
'Ah, Launce, it will be a strange Heaven that you win to, unless you mend your ways. Ye are nocht but a wild Carrick savage. But ye maun e'en dree your weird, young Launcelot, and auld Robert Bruce maun dree his. Fare ye weel.'
So we parted there on the steps of his own house. And with that I betook me to horse, and forth through the turbulent city that could yet make so little of its tulzies; and as I went I thought, 'Lord, Lord, for one hour of Gilbert Kennedy and me to show them a better way of it; or even Robert Harburgh. And it would be like capturing Heaven by violence, to enter Holyrood House in the way of stouthrief and spulzie!'
But I only thought these things without intent to do them, for I am a King's man and peaceable—besides which, I had but lately spoken good words to a minister of religion. Nevertheless, what a booty would there not have been in that palace at the Canongate foot! Not that I would lay hand upon a stiver of it, even if I got the chance, but the thought of it was marvellously refreshing, I own.
CHAPTER XXXII
GREEK MEETS GREEK.