Sir Thomas was discovered sitting most forlornly within, upon the corner of a great chest, with many pieces of meat depending from hooks about his head. His wife, reaching in from the step, took him by the top-knot of hair as by a handle, and pulled him out upon the floor of the kitchen with one movement of her arm.
'It's a guid's mercy,' she cried, 'that yince ye war a papish monk wi' a shaven crown, for the place that ye keepit bare sae lang has ripened late, after a' the lave o' the crap has been blawn awa' wi' the wind.'
I had been endeavouring to explain to myself the strangeness of the wisp upon Sir Thomas's head, but the words of his wife made clear the matter. It was but the retarded growth of his long fallow tonsure.
'An' it's a de'il o' a queer thing,' said Mistress Tode, 'that turning your coat ootside in should turn your hair inside oot! Heard ye ever the mak' o' that?'
'It was all owing to—' began Sir Thomas Tode, looking at his wife with a cringing shamefacedness that was most entertaining.
'Oh, I ken,' interrupted his wife, 'it was owing to the Black Vaut o' Dunure, nae doot! I declare I canna haud ye aff it. I jaloose that it maun hae been owing to the Black Vaut o' Dunure that Mary Greg, a decent cook woman and a deacon in her trade, took up wi' the likes o' you—that mak's yoursel' nae better than a mountibank wi' your yammer-yammering like a corn-crake aboot black vauts and roasted abbots. Fegs, I declare I could roast ye yoursel'. Ye are that muckle thocht and care to me, but ye wadna pay for the trouble. Even the Earl himsel' couldna mak' a profit oot o' you—an' a' folk kens that he wad drive a flea to London market for the sake o' the horns and hide!'
'Wheesht, wheesht, honest woman!' said Sir Thomas Tode, 'wha kens wha may be listenin'—maybe the Countess her very sel'.'
'Faith, an' I carena,' cried the brave cook, tossing her head, 'she is a backstairs body at ony gate, but she canna fear me—na, brawly no'. I ken ower muckle. I ken things the Earl doesna ken. Certes an' serve him richt—a young man like him—but three-an'-twenty, to mairry his grandmither. Though guid kens Mary Greg is no the woman to speak, that mairried nocht better than an auld skeleton hung on strings—for nae sounder reason than that it is the custom for the cook in a decent big hoose to tak' up wi' the chaplain.'
The kitchen began to fill, and I bethought me that I should be going; for it was not seemly that a gentleman and a squire should collogue overly long with all the orra serving-men and women in a great house. But before I could lift my sword and depart, there came in a dark, burly man with a sharp-cleft eagle's face on him, his eyes very close together, and a contemptuous sneer that was liker a snarl, on his face.
'Good e'en to ye, John Dick,' said the cook. 'Mind ye keep the peace, ye wull-cat, for there are to be no collieshangies in my kitchen!'