“There will be no lack of messengers,” answered his mistress.
“By my hand, but there will,” replied the old man; “your castle is but poorly manned, considering the watches that you must keep, having this charge—There is the warder, and two others, whom you discarded for tampering with Master George; then for the warder's tower, the bailie, the donjon—five men mount each guard, and the rest must sleep for the most part in their clothes. To send away another man, were to harass the sentinels to death—unthrifty misuse for a household. To take in new soldiers were dangerous, the charge requiring tried men. I see but one thing for it—I will do your errand to Sir William Douglas myself.”
“That were indeed a resource!—And on what day within twenty years would it be done?” said the Lady.
“Even with the speed of man and horse,” said Dryfesdale; “for though I care not much about the latter days of an old serving-man's life, yet I would like to know as soon as may be, whether my neck is mine own or the hangman's.”
“Holdest thou thy own life so lightly?” said the Lady.
“Else I had reckoned more of that of others,” said the predestinarian—“What is death?—it is but ceasing to live—And what is living?—a weary return of light and darkness, sleeping and waking, being hungered and eating. Your dead man needs neither candle nor can, neither fire nor feather-bed; and the joiner's chest serves him for an eternal frieze-jerkin.”
“Wretched man! believest thou not that after death comes the judgment?”
“Lady,” answered Dryfesdale, “as my mistress, I may not dispute your words; but, as spiritually speaking, you are still but a burner of bricks in Egypt, ignorant of the freedom of the saints; for, as was well shown to me by that gifted man, Nicolaus Schoefferbach, who was martyred by the bloody Bishop of Munster, he cannot sin who doth but execute that which is predestined, since—”
“Silence!” said the Lady, interrupting him,—“Answer me not with thy bold and presumptuous blasphemy, but hear me. Thou hast been long the servant of our house—”
“The born servant of the Douglas—they have had the best of me—I served them since I left Lockerbie: I was then ten years old, and you may soon add the threescore to it.”