"Your honour is the bad paymaster," he said, "who pays before it
is done. What would you do were I to miss the buck after you have paid
me my wood-fee?"
"I suppose," said the Keeper, smiling, "you would hardly guess what I
mean were I to tell you of a condictio indebiti?"
"Not I, on my saul. I guess it is some law phrase; but sue a beggar,
and--your honour knows what follows. Well, but I will be just with
you, and if bow and brach fail not, you shall have a piece of game two
fingers fat on the brisket."
As he was about to go off, his master again called him, and asked, as
if by accident, whether the Master of Ravenswood was actually so brave a
man and so good a shooter as the world spoke him.
"Brave!--brave enough, I warrant you," answered Norman. "I was in the
wood at Tyninghame when there was a sort of gallants hunting with my
lord; on my saul, there was a buck turned to bay made us all stand
back--a stout old Trojan of the first head, ten-tyned branches, and a
brow as broad as e'er a bullock's. Egad, he dashed at the old lord, and
there would have been inlake among the perrage, if the Master had not
whipt roundly in, and hamstrung him with his cutlass.
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