the messenger, she
turned her eyes to continue the study of the merchant, whom she watched
with feline assiduity. The conversation was again resumed.

"Five barrels, said ye, Monsieur?" resumed Innerkepple. "Let me
see--that, wi' what I hae mysel, may see me out; but it will be a guid
heir-loom to Kate's husband. What is the price?"

"One merk the gallon of four pints de Paris," answered the merchant.

("Yet I see no marks of Otterstone about him," muttered Kate to herself.
"How beautiful he is, maugre his disguise! Had he come on a message of
love, in place of war, I would have taken him prisoner, and bound him
with the rays of light that come from my languishing eyes.")

"That's dear, man," said Innerkepple. "But ye're a cunning rogue; if I
keep drinking at this rate, the price will sink as the flavour rises,
and ye'll catch me, as men do gudgeons, by the tongue."

"Aha! _mon cher_ Innerkepple," said the merchant, "you have von
excellent humour of fun about ye. If I vere not _un pauvre merchand_, I
would have one grand plaisir in getting _mouille_--I mean drunk--vit
you."

("Ha! my treacherous Adonis, art on that tack, with a foul wind in thy
fair face?" was Kate's mental ejaculation. "If thou nearest thy haven, I
am a worse pilot than Palinurus.")

"Wi' wine like that before ane," responded the baron, "the topers
alongside o' ye may be Frenchmen or Dutchmen, warriors or warlocks,
wraiths or wassailers, merchants or mahouns--a's alike. It will put a
soul into a ghaist, a yearning heart into a gowl, and a spirit o'
nobility in the breast o' ane wha never quartered arms but wi' the fair
anes o' flesh an' bluid that belang to his wife. I'll be oblivious o' a'
warldly things before Kate's sandals come frae Selkirk; but yer price,
man, I fear, will stick to me to the end."

"I cannot make one deduction," said the merchant, "but I vill give to
the men in the base-court one jolly debauch of very good vin, vich is in
my hampers."

("The kaim of chanticleer is in the wind's eye," muttered Katherine.
"Thou pointest nobly for the direction of treachery; but my sandals
will be back from Selkirk long before I am obliged to march with thee to
the prison of Otterstone.")

"Weel, mak it a merk," said Innerkepple, "for five pints, an' a bouse to
my retainers, wha are as muckle beloved by me as if they were my bairns;
an' I will close wi' ye."

"Vell, that is one covenant _inter nous_," said the merchant; "but I
cannot re