d fight which
Wat of Lochinvar, my cousin, had fought for my sake with Cornet Peter
Inglis.

The two gentlemen sat and supped their kail, in which a pullet had been
boiled, with quite remarkable relish. But it was not till the wine had
been uncorked and set at their elbows, that they began to have much
converse.

Then they sat and gossiped together very pleasantly, like men that are
easing their hearts and loosening their belts over trencher and stoup,
after a hard day's darg.

It was John Graham who spoke first.

"Have you heard," he said, "the excellent new jest concerning Anne
Keith, what she did with these vaguing blasties up at Methven, when the
laird was absent in London?"

"Nay," replied Roger McGhie, "that have I not. I am not in the way at
Balmaghie to hear other misdeeds than those of John Graham and his horse
Boscobel, that is now filling his kyte in my stable, as his master is
eke doing in hall."

"Well," said Claverhouse, "we shall have to give Anne the justiciar
power and send her lord to the spence and the store chamber. She should
have the jack and the riding breeks, and he the keys of the small ale
casks. So it were better for his Majesty's service."

"But I thought him a good loyal man," said Roger McGhie.

"One that goes as easy as an old shoe--like yourself, Roger. Not so my
lady. Heard ye what our Anne did? The conventiclers came to set up a
preaching in a tent on the laird's ground, and they told it to Anne.
Whereupon she rose, donned her lord's buff coat and slung his basket
hilt at her pretty side. And so to the woodside rode she. There were
with her none but Methven's young brother, a lad like a fathom of pump
water. Yet with Anne Keith to captain him, he e'en drew sword and bent
pistol like a brave one. I had not thought that there was so much good
stuff in David."

Roger McGhie sipped at his wine and nodded, drawing up one eyebrow and
down the other, as his habit was when he was amused--which indeed was
not seldom, for he was merry within him much more often than he told
any.

"Then who but Anne was the pretty fighter," Clavers went on lightly,
"with a horseman's piece on her left arm, and a drawn tuck in her right
hand? Also was she not the fine general? For she kept the enemy's forces
sindry, marching her servants to and fro, all armed to the teeth--to and
fro all day between them, and threatening the tent in which was the
preacher to the rabble. She cried to them that if they