I defy him to hae played 'Boot and saddle,'
or 'Horse and away,' or 'Gallants, come trot,' with me; he hadna the
tones."
"But what is all this to old Lord Ravenswood, my friend?" said the
Master, who, with an anxiety not unnatural in his circumstances, was
desirous of prosecuting the musician's first topic--"what had his memory
to do with the degeneracy of the trumpet music?"
"Just this, sir," answered the sexton, "that I lost my wind in his
service. Ye see I was trumpeter at the castle, and had allowance for
blawing at break of day, and at dinner time, and other whiles when
there was company about, and it pleased my lord; and when he raised his
militia to caper awa' to Bothwell Brig against the wrang-headed westland
Whigs, I behoved, reason or name, to munt a horse and caper awa' wi'
them."
"And very reasonable," said Ravenswood; "you were his servant and
vassal."
"Servitor, say ye?" replied the sexton, "and so I was; but it was to
blaw folk to their warm dinner, or at the warst to a decent kirkyard,
and no to skirl them awa' to a bluidy braeside, where there was deil a
bedral but the hooded craw.
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