"
"Are you indeed, Master?" said Bucklaw, his face resuming at once its
natural expression of light-hearted carelessness and audacity; "that is
more than I expected of you; for, Master, men say you are not ready to
retract your opinion and your language."
"Not when I have well considered them," said the Master.
"Then you are a little wiser than I am, for I always give my friend
satisfaction first, and explanation afterwards. If one of us falls, all
accounts are settled; if not, men are never so ready for peace as after
war. But what does that bawling brat of a boy want?" said Bucklaw. "I
wish to Heaven he had come a few minutes sooner! and yet it must have
been ended some time, and perhaps this way is as well as any other."
As he spoke, the boy he mentioned came up, cudgelling an ass, on which
he was mounted, to the top of its speed, and sending, like one of
Ossian's heroes, his voice before him: "Gentlemen--gentlemen, save
yourselves! for the gudewife bade us tell ye there were folk in her
house had taen Captain Craigengelt, and were seeking for Bucklaw, and
that ye behoved to ride for it.
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