Summertrees repeated the toast, with a sly wink to the lady, while Fairford drank his glass in silence.
‘Well, young advocate,’ said the landed proprietor, ‘I am glad to see there is some shame, if there is little honesty, left in the Faculty. Some of your black gowns, nowadays, have as little of the one as of the other.’
‘At least, sir,’ replied Mr. Fairford, ‘I am so much of a lawyer as not willingly to enter into disputes which I am not retained to support—it would be but throwing away both time and argument.’
‘Come, come,’ said the lady, ‘we will have no argument in this house about Whig or Tory—the provost kens what he maun SAY, and I ken what he should THINK; and for a’ that has come and gane yet, there may be a time coming when honest men may say what they think, whether they be provosts or not.’
‘D’ye hear that, provost?’ said Summertrees; ‘your wife’s a witch, man; you should nail a horseshoe on your chamber door—Ha, ha, ha!’
This sally did not take quite so well as former efforts of the laird’s wit. The lady drew up, and the provost said, half aside, ‘The sooth bourd is nae bourd. [The true joke is no joke.] You will find the horseshoe hissing hot, Summertrees.’
‘You can speak from experience, doubtless, provost,’ answered the laird; ‘but I crave pardon—I need not tell Mrs. Crosbie that I have all respect for the auld and honourable House of Redgauntlet.’
‘And good reason ye have, that are sae sib to them,’ quoth the lady, ‘and kend weel baith them that are here, and them that are gane.’
‘In troth, and ye may say sae, madam,’ answered the laird; ‘for poor Harry Redgauntlet, that suffered at Carlisle, was hand and glove with me; and yet we parted on short leave-taking.’
‘Aye, Summertrees,’ said the provost; ‘that was when you played Cheat-the-woodie, and gat the by-name of Pate-in-Peril. I wish you would tell the story to my young friend here. He likes weel to hear of a sharp trick, as most lawyers do.’