“La, now there,” exclaimed Mrs. Kyle; “and did not Sylvester say that they were nought but two lousy Scots, and that any fare would do for sike loons. Well, who could ha’ thought, after all, that they could be emperors? An we had known that, indeed, we might ha’ gi’en them emperor’s fare. Come thee this way, kind sir, and I’ll let thee see our spense.”
This was the very point which the wily Master Sang had been aiming at. Seizing up a lamp, she led the way along a dark passage. As they reached the end of it, their feet sounded hollow on a part of the floor. Mrs. Kyle stopped, set down her lamp, slipped a small sliding plank into a groove in the side wall made to receive it, and exposed a ring and bolt attached to an iron lever. Applying her hand to this, she lifted a trap door, and disclosed a flight of a dozen steps or more, down which she immediately tripped, and Sang hesitated not a moment to follow her. But what a sight met his eyes when he reached the bottom! He found himself in a pretty large vault, hung round with juicy barons and sirloins of beef, delicate carcases of mutton, venison, hams, flitches, tongues, with all manner of fowls and game, dangling in most inviting profusion from the roof. It was here that Master Kyle preserved his stock-in-trade, in troublesome times, from the rapacity of the Border-depredators. Mortimer Sang feasted his eyes for some moments in silence, but they were allowed small time for their banquet.
A distant foot was heard at the farther extremity of the passage, and then the angry voice of Kyle calling his wife. Mortimer sprang to the top of the steps, just as mine host had reached the trap-door.
“Eh! what!” exclaimed Kyle with horror and surprise—“A man in the spense with my wife! Thieves! Murder!”
He had time to say no more, for Sang grappled him by the throat, as he was in the very act of stooping to shut the trap-door on him, and down he tugged the bulky host, like a huge sack; but, overpowered by the descent of such a mountain upon his head, he rolled over the steps with his burthen into the very middle of the vault. More afraid of her husband’s wrath than anxious for his safety, Mrs. Kyle put her lamp on the ground, [[32]]jumped nimbly over the prostrate strugglers, and escaped. The active and Herculean Sang, rising to his knees, with his left hand pressed down the half-stunned publican, who lay on his back gasping for breath; then seizing the lamp with his right, he rose suddenly to his legs, and, regaining the trap-door in the twinkling of an eye, sat him down quietly on the floor to recover his own breath; and, taking the end of the lever in his hand, and half closing the aperture, he waited patiently till his adversary had so far recovered himself as to be able to come to a parley.
“So, Master Sylvester Kyle,” said the esquire, “thou art there, art thou—caught in thine own trap? So much for treating noble Scots, the flower of chivalry, with stinking hog’s entrails. By’r Lady, ’tis well for thee thou hast such good store of food there. Let me see; methinks thou must hold out well some week or twain ere it may begin to putrify. Thou hadst better fall to, then, whiles it be fresh; time enow to begin starving when it groweth distasteful. So wishing thee some merry meals ere thou diest, I shall now shut down the trap-door—bolt it fast—nail up the sliding plank—and as no one knoweth on’t but thy wife, who, kind soul, hath agreed to go off with me to Scotland to-night, thou mayest reckon on quiet slumbers for the next century.”
“Oh, good Sir Squire,” cried Kyle, wringing his hands like a maniac, “let me out, I beseech thee; leave me not to so dreadful a death. Thou and thy knights and all shall feast like princes; thou shalt float in sack and canary; thou shalt drink Rhinwyn in barrelfuls, and Malvoisie in hogsheads, to the very lowest lacquey of ye. No, merciful Sir Squire, thou canst not be so cruel—Oh, oh!”
“Hand me up,” said Sang, with a stern voice, “hand me up, I say, that venison, and these pullets there, that neat’s tongue, and a brace of the fattest of these ducks; I shall then consider whether thou art worthy of my most royal clemency.”
Mine host had no alternative but to obey. One by one the various articles enumerated by Sang were handed up to him, and deposited beside him on the floor of the passage.
“Take these flagons there,” said he, “and draw from each of these buts, that I may taste.—Ha! excellent, i’ faith, excellent.—Now, Sir knave, those of thy kidney mount up a ladder to finish their career of villainy, but thy fate lieth downwards; so down, descend, and mingle with thy kindred dirt.”