" He then barred the kitchen door in the face of the Lord
Keeper's servant, whom he perceived returning from the party at the
gate, and muttering, "How the deil cam he in?--but deil may care. Mysie,
what are ye sitting shaking and greeting in the chimney-neuk for? Come
here--or stay where ye are, and skirl as loud as ye can; it's a' ye're
gude for. I say, ye auld deevil, skirl--skirl--louder--louder, woman;
gar the gentles hear ye in the ha'. I have heard ye as far off as the
Bass for a less matter. And stay--down wi' that crockery----"
And with a sweeping blow, he threw down from a shelf some articles of
pewter and earthenware. He exalted his voice amid the clatter, shouting
and roaring in a manner which changed Mysie's hysterical terrors of the
thunder into fears that her old fellow-servant was gone distracted. "He
has dung down a' the bits o' pigs, too--the only thing we had left
to haud a soup milk--and he has spilt the hatted hit that was for the
Master's dinner. Mercy save us, the auld man's gaen clean and clear wud
wi' the thunner!"
"Haud your tongue, ye b----!" said Caleb, in the impetuous and
overbearing triumph of successful invention, "a's provided now--dinner
and a'thing; the thunner's done a' in a clap of a hand!"
"Puir man, he's muckle astray," said Mysie, looking at him with a
mixture of pity and alarm; "I wish he may ever come come hame to himsell
again.
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