accept the honour
destined for him by the fathers of the city, he extricated himself from
the crowd, and hastened home to put on his best apparel; in which he
presently afterwards repaired to the council house, where the ponderous
oak table seemed to bend under the massy dishes of choice Tay salmon
and delicious sea fish from Dundee, being the dainties which the fasting
season permitted, whilst neither wine, ale, nor metheglin were wanting
to wash them down. The waits, or minstrels of the burgh, played during
the repast, and in the intervals of the music one of them recited With
great emphasis a long poetical account of the battle of Blackearnside,
fought by Sir William Wallace and his redoubted captain and friend,
Thomas of Longueville, against the English general Seward--a theme
perfectly familiar to all the guests, who, nevertheless, more tolerant
than their descendants, listened as if it had all the zest of novelty.
It was complimentary to the ancestor of the Knight of Kinfauns,
doubtless, and to other Perthshire families, in passages which the
audience applauded vociferously, whilst they pledged each other in
mighty draughts to the memory of the heroes who had fought by the side
of the Champion of Scotland. The health of Henry Wynd was quaffed
with repeated shouts, and the provost announced publicly, that the
magistrates were consulting how they might best invest him with some
distinguished privilege or honorary reward, to show how highly his
fellow citizens valued his courageous exertions.

"Nay, take it not thus, an it like your worships," said the smith, with
his usual blunt manner, "lest men say that valour must be rare in Perth
when they reward a man for fighting for the right of a forlorn widow.
I am sure there are many scores of stout burghers in the town who would
have done this day's dargue as well or better than I. For, in good
sooth, I ought to have cracked yonder fellow's head piece like an
earthen pipkin--ay, and would have done it, too, if it had not been
one which I myself tempered for Sir John Ramorny. But, an the Fair
City think my service of any worth, I will conceive it far more than
acquitted by any aid which you may afford from the common good to the
support of the widow Magdalen and her poor orphans."

"That may well be done," said Sir Patrick Charteris, "and yet leave the
Fair City rich enough to pay her debts to Henry Wynd, of which every man
of us is a better judge than him self, who is bl