ors and scraped it with them, and blew away the brown burning
before he made any response; then he turned round to my grandfather, and
looking at him with the tail of his eye from aneath his broad bonnet,
said,--

"Then ye're no in the service of his Grace, my Lord the Archbishop? And
yet, frien', I think na ye're just a peer to Sir Davie, that you need to
ettle at coping with his braw mare, Skelp-the-dub, whilk I selt to him
mysel'; but the de'il a bawbee hae I yet han'let o' the price; howsever,
that's neither here nor there, a day of reckoning will come at last."

My grandfather assured Tobit Balmutto it was indeed very true he was not
in the service of the Archbishop, and that he would not have been so
instant about getting to St Andrews with the knight had he not a dread
and fear that Sir David was the bearer of something that might be sore
news to the flock o' Christ, and he was fain to be there as soon as him
to speak in time of what he jealoused, that any of those in the town who
stood within the reverence of the Archbishop's aversion, on account of
their religion, might get an inkling and provide for themselves.

"If that's your errand," said the horse-setter, "ye s'all hae the
swiftest foot in my aught to help you on, and I redde you no to spare
the spur, for I'm troubled to think ye may be owre late--Satan, or they
lie upon him, has been heating his cauldrons yonder for a brewing, and
the Archbishop's thrang providing the malt. Nae farther gane than
yesterday, auld worthy Mr Mill of Lunan, being discovered hidden in a
kiln at Dysart, was ta'en, they say, in a cart, like a malefactor, by
twa uncircumcised loons, servitors to his Grace, and it's thought it
will go hard wi' him on account of his great godliness; so mak what
haste ye dow, and the Lord put mettle in the beast that bears you."

With that Tobit Balmutto ordered the lad who brought my grandfather to
the house to saddle a horse that he called Spunkie; and in a trice he
was mounted and on the road after Sir David, whom he overtook
notwithstanding the spirit of his mare, Skelp-the-dub, before he had
cleared the town of Pathhead, and they travelled onward at a brisk trot
together, the knight waxing more and more pleased with his companion, in
so much that by the time they had reached Cupar, where they stopped to
corn, he lamented that a young man of his parts should think of
following the slavery of a ferrier's life, when he might rise to trusts
and f