"Take a horse, Master," exclaimed the Marquis, greatly affected by this
additional misfortune, so unexpectedly heaped upon his young protege;
"and give me my ambling palfrey; and haste forward, you knaves, to see
what can be done to save the furniture, or to extinguish the fire--ride,
you knaves, for your lives!"
The attendants bustled together, and began to strike their horses with
the spur, and call upon Caleb to show them the road. But the voice
of that careful seneschal was heard above the tumult, "Oh, stop sirs,
stop--turn bridle, for the luve of Mercy; add not loss of lives to the
loss of warld's gean! Thirty barrels of powther, landed out of a Dunkirk
dogger in the auld lord's time--a' in the vau'ts of the auld tower,--the
fire canna be far off it, I trow. Lord's sake, to the right, lads--to
the right; let's pit the hill atween us and peril,--a wap wi' a
corner-stane o' Wolf's Crag wad defy the doctor!"
It will readily be supposed that this annunciation hurried the Marquis
and his attendants into the route which Caleb prescribed, dragging
Ravenswood along with them, although there was much in the matter which
he could not possibly comprehend.
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