lood of King James V."
"Not with me, I do assure you, Mr Stewart; you do me injustice if you
think so. I will speak to your officer to-morrow; and I trust you shall
soon find yourself in a rank where there shall be no anomalies to be
reconciled."
"I believe, madam," said Bothwell, "your goodness will find itself
deceived; but I am obliged to you for your intention, and, at all events,
I will have a merry night with Mr Harrison."
Lady Margaret took a ceremonious leave, with all the respect which she
owed to royal blood, even when flowing in the veins of a sergeant of the
Life-Guards; again assuring Mr Stewart, that whatever was in the Tower of
Tillietudlem was heartily at his service and that of his attendants.
Sergeant Bothwell did not fail to take the lady at her word, and readily
forgot the height from which his family had descended, in a joyous
carousal, during which Mr Harrison exerted himself to produce the best
wine in the cellar, and to excite his guest to be merry by that seducing
example, which, in matters of conviviality, goes farther than precept.
Old Gudyill associated himself with a party so much to his taste, pretty
much as Davy, in the Second Part of Henry the Fourth, mingles in the
revels of his master, Justice Shallow. He ran down to the cellar at the
risk of breaking his neck, to ransack some private catacomb, known, as he
boasted, only to himself, and which never either had, or should, during
his superintendence, renden forth a bottle of its contents to any one but
a real king's friend.
"When the Duke dined here," said the butler, seating himself at a
distance from the table, being somewhat overawed by Bothwell's genealogy,
but yet hitching his seat half a yard nearer at every clause of his
speech, "my leddy was importunate to have a bottle of that
Burgundy,"--(here he advanced his seat a little,)--"but I dinna ken how
it was, Mr Stewart, I misdoubted him. I jaloused him, sir, no to be the
friend to government he pretends: the family are not to lippen to. That
auld Duke James lost his heart before he lost his head; and the
Worcester man was but wersh parritch, neither gude to fry, boil, nor sup
cauld." (With this witty observation, he completed his first parallel,
and commenced a zigzag after the manner of an experienced engineer, in
order to continue his approaches to the table.) "Sae, sir, the faster my
leddy cried 'Burgundy to his Grace--the auld Burgundy--the choice
Burgundy--the Burgund
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