The seneschal withdrew, though reluctantly, and casting his eyes about for the indispensable Katherine; but she was not within his reach, and he felt himself compelled, by the impatience of the old baron, to admit the merchant. The creaking hinges of the bridge resounded through the castle and the merchant and his mules were seen by Katherine, looking through a loophole, slowly making their way into the castle. It was too late for her now to consider of the propriety of the permission to enter; so she leant her chin on her hand, and quietly scanned the stranger, as he crossed the bridge, driving his mules before him with a large stick, which he brought down with a loud thwack on their backs—accompanying his act with a loud "Whoop, ho!" and occasionally throwing his eyes over the walls as he proceeded.
"Whom have we here?" said she, as she communed with herself, and nodded her head, still apparent through the loophole. "By'r Lady! neither Gascon nor Fleming, or my eyes are no better than my father's, when he looks at antiques through the red medium of his vintage of '90. Perchance, a lover come to run away with Kate Kennedy. Hey! the thought tickles my wild wits, and sends me on
the wings of fancy into the regions of romance. Yet I have not read that the catching and carrying off of Tartars hath anything to do with the themes of romantic love-errantry. I'm witty at the expense of this poor packman; but, seriously, Katherine Kennedy must carry off her lover. True to the difference that opposes me to the rest of my sex, I could not love a man whom I did not vanquish and abduct, as a riever does the chattels of the farmer."
Continuing her gaze, as she laughed at her own strange thoughts, she saw the merchant bind his mules to a ring fixed in the inside of the wall, and take out of his panniers a vessel, with which he proceeded in the direction of the door that led to the hall. When the merchant had disappeared, she saw one of the retainers of the castle examining intently the mules and their panniers. He looked up and caught her eye; and placing his finger on his forehead, made a sign for her to come down. She obeyed with her usual alacrity, and in a moment was at the side of the retainer, who, slipping gently under the shade of the castle, so as to be out of the view of those within the hall, communicated to the ear of Katherine some intelligence of an important nature. The man looked grave; Kate snapped her fingers; the fire of her eyes glanced from the balls like the sparks of struck flint, and the expression of her countenance indicated that she had formed a purpose which she gloried in executing.
"Hark ye, Gregory," said she; "I am still your debtor, but I require again your services." And, looking carefully around her, she whispered some words into the ear of the man; and, upon receiving his nod of intelligence and assent, sprung up the steps that led to the hall.
The wine merchant was, as she entered, sitting at the oaken table, opposite to the old baron, who was holding up in his hand a species of glass jug, and looking through it with that peculiar expression which is only to be found
in the face of a luxurious wine-toper in the act of passing sentence.
"Wha, in God's name, are ye, man?" cried the baron, under the cover of whose speech Kate slipped cleverly up to the window, and sat down, with her cheek resting on her hand, in apparent listlessness, but eyeing intently the stranger. "I could have wad the picture o' my ancestor, Watt o' Flodden, or King Henry's turret, in the east wing o' Innerkepple, wi' its twenty wounds, mair precious than goold, that there wasna a cup o' vintage '90 in Scotland except what I had mysel. Whar got ye't, man? Are ye the Devil? Hae ye brocht it frae my ain cellars? Speak, Satan!"
"Vy, mon cher Innerkepple," replied the merchant, "did I not know that you were one grand biberon—I mean drinker of vin? It is known all over the marches—I mean the Bordures. Aha! no one Frenchman could cheat the famous Innerkepple; so I brought the best that was in all my celliers. Is it not grand and magnifique?"
"Grand an' magnifique, man!" replied Innerkepple, as he sipped the wine with the gravity of a judge. "It's mair than a' that, man, if my tongue could coin a word to express its ain sense o' what it is at this moment enjoying. But the organ's stupified wi' sheer delight, and forgets its very mither's tongue; an' nae wonder, for my very een, that didna taste it, reel and get drunk wi' the sight." And the delighted baron took another pull of the goblet.