“Pschaw, pshaw!” replied his guest; “get up—get up; the hounds are abroad. I have saddled the horses myself, for old Caleb was calling for grooms and lackeys, and would never have proceeded without two hours’ apology for the absence of men that were a hundred miles off. Get up, Master; I say the hounds are out—get up, I say; the hunt is up.” And off ran Bucklaw.
“And I say,” said the Master, rising slowly, “that nothing can concern me less. Whose hounds come so near to us?”
“The Honourable Lord Bittlebrains’,” answered Caleb, who had followed the impatient Laird of Bucklaw into his master’s bedroom, “and truly I ken nae title they have to be yowling and howling within the freedoms and immunities of your lordship’s right of free forestry.”
“Nor I, Caleb,” replied Ravenswood, “excepting that they have bought both the lands and the right of forestry, and may think themselves entitled to exercise the rights they have paid their money for.”
“It may be sae, my lord,” replied Caleb; “but it’s no gentleman’s deed of them to come here and exercise such-like right, and your lordship living at your ain castle of Wolf’s Crag. Lord Bittlebrains would weel to remember what his folk have been.”
“And what we now are,” said the Master, with suppressed bitterness of feeling. “But reach me my cloak, Caleb, and I will indulge Bucklaw with a sight of this chase. It is selfish to sacrifice my guest’s pleasure to my own.”
“Sacrifice!” echoed Caleb, in a tone which seemed to imply the total absurdity of his master making the least concession in deference to any one—“sacrifice, indeed!—but I crave your honour’s pardon, and whilk doublet is it your pleasure to wear?”
“Any one you will, Caleb; my wardrobe, I suppose, is not very extensive.”
“Not extensive!” echoed his assistant; “when there is the grey and silver that your lordship bestowed on Hew Hildebrand, your outrider; and the French velvet that went with my lord your father—be gracious to him!—my lord your father’s auld wardrobe to the puir friends of the family; and the drap-de-Berry——”
“Which I gave to you, Caleb, and which, I suppose, is the only dress we have any chance to come at, except that I wore yesterday; pray, hand me that, and say no more about it.”