"
"Uncover, Caleb! uncover, for Heaven's sake!" said Bucklaw; "let us have
what you can give us without preface. Why, it stands well enough, man,"
he continued, addressing impatiently the ancient butler, who, without
reply, kept shifting the dish, until he had at length placed it with
mathematical precision in the very midst of the table.
"What have we got here, Caleb?" inquired the Master in his turn.
"Ahem! sir, ye suld have known before; but his honour the Laird of
Bucklaw is so impatient," answered Caleb, still holding the dish with
one hand and the cover with the other, with evident reluctance to
disclose the contents.
"But what is it, a God's name--not a pair of clean spurs, I hope, in the
Border fashion of old times?"
"Ahem! ahem!" reiterated Caleb, "your honour is pleased to be facetious;
natheless, I might presume to say it was a convenient fashion, and used,
as I have heard, in an honourable and thriving family. But touching your
present dinner, I judged that this being St. Magdalen's [Margaret's]
Eve, who was a worthy queen of Scotland in her day, your honours might
judge it decorous, if not altogether to fast, yet only to sustain nature
with some slight refection, as ane saulted herring or the like.
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