k) taking hold of his bridle, and
assisting him to dismount in the roughpaved court of Tillietudlem.

"Why, John," said the veteran, "what devil of a discipline is this you
have been keeping? You have been reading Geneva print this morning
already."

"I have been reading the Litany," said John, shaking his head with a look
of drunken gravity, and having only caught one word of the Major's
address to him; "life is short, sir; we are flowers of the field,
sir--hiccup--and lilies of the valley."

"Flowers and lilies? Why, man, such carles as thou and I can hardly be
called better than old hemlocks, decayed nettles, or withered rag-weed;
but I suppose you think that we are still worth watering."

"I am an old soldier, sir, I thank Heaven--hiccup"--

"An old skinker, you mean, John. But come, never mind, show me the way to
your mistress, old lad."

John Gudyill led the way to the stone hall, where Lady Margaret was
fidgeting about, superintending, arranging, and re-forming the
preparations made for the reception of the celebrated Claverhouse, whom
one party honoured and extolled as a hero, and another execrated as a
bloodthirsty oppressor.

"Did I not tell you," said Lady Margaret to her principal female
attendant--"did I not tell you, Mysie, that it was my especial pleasure
on this occasion to have every thing in the precise order wherein it was
upon that famous morning when his most sacred majesty partook of his
disjune at Tillietudlem?"

"Doubtless, such were your leddyship's commands, and to the best of my
remembrance"--was Mysie answering, when her ladyship broke in with, "Then
wherefore is the venison pasty placed on the left side of the throne, and
the stoup of claret upon the right, when ye may right weel remember,
Mysie, that his most sacred majesty with his ain hand shifted the pasty
to the same side with the flagon, and said they were too good friends to
be parted?"

"I mind that weel, madam," said Mysie; "and if I had forgot, I have heard
your leddyship often speak about that grand morning sin' syne; but I
thought every thing was to be placed just as it was when his majesty, God
bless him, came into this room, looking mair like an angel than a man, if
he hadna been sae black-a-vised."

"Then ye thought nonsense, Mysie; for in whatever way his most sacred
majesty ordered the position of the trenchers and flagons, that, as weel
as his royal pleasure in greater matters, should be a law to his
subjects,