“Ay, but,” said the ruffian, “they say the Primate recommends a little strangling and burning in aid of both censure and of sword. But fare ye weel, I owe you a life, and it may be I will not forget my debt.”
The bailie now came bustling in, dressed in his blue coat and bandaliers, and attended by two or three halberdiers. “I have been a thought too late in waiting upon your reverend lordship. I am grown somewhat fatter since the field of Pinkie, and my leathern coat slips not on so soon as it was wont; but the dungeon is ready, and though, as I said, I have been somewhat late—”
Here his intended prisoner walked gravely up to the officer's nose, to his great amazement.
“You have been indeed somewhat late, bailie,” said he, “and I am greatly obligated to your buff-coat, and to the time you took to put it on. If the secular arm had arrived some quarter of an hour sooner, I had been out of the reach of spiritual grace; but as it is, I wish you good even, and a safe riddance out of your garment of durance, in which you have much the air of a hog in armour.”
Wroth was the bailie at this comparison, and exclaimed in ire—“An it were not for the presence of the venerable Lord Abbot, thou knave—”
“Nay, an thou wouldst try conclusions,” said Christie of the Clinthill, “I will meet thee at day-break by Saint Mary's Well.”
“Hardened wretch!” said Father Eustace, “art thou but this instant delivered from death, and dost thou so soon morse thoughts of slaughter?”
“I will meet with thee ere it be long, thou knave,” said the bailie, “and teach thee thine Oremus.”
“I will meet thy cattle in a moonlight night before that day,” said he of the Clinthill.
“I will have thee by the neck one misty morning, thou strong thief,” answered the secular officer of the Church.