"Fair Annie, you are very severe upon me. If I was on such a duty, could I help it? A soldier must hear and obey."
"Even to ducking his mother, I suppose. Go to--I have no patience with such work! And was it by Finland's orders that all the old cummers of Cramond were sent swimming down the river tied to chairs and cutty-stools?"
"But they were very old, and ugly too; besides, the stream was very shallow. And as they were all caught in the act of singing a psalm in the wood of Dalmenie, what else could we do but duck them well for their contumacy? It was rare fun, I assure you, and Finland nearly burst his corslet with laughing; but I assure you, ladies, we only ducked the old women of the village."
"Ay--ay; the young would not get off scatheless, I fear," replied Annie, giving him a switch with her riding-rod; "I know soldiers of old. But, marry come up! our Teviotdale lads would have given you a hot reception had you come among them with such hostile intentions."
"Then the worse would be their fare," said Walter, in a tone of pique. "When ordered by our superiors to test the people----"
"Heigh-day! Now, good Mr. Fenton, suppose you were commanded to _test_ us in that rough fashion, because we would not pronounce Sharp a martyr and the Covenant a bond of rebellion, and said just whatever you wished of us,--what then? For, in sooth, we would say none of those things: would we, gossip Lilian?"
"But then we should each be sent voyaging down the loch on a cutty-stool," said Lilian, joining her friend in a loud burst of merriment.
"On my honour, ladies," said Walter very seriously, "these Orders of Council refer only to the rascal multitude. Who ever heard of a lady of rank being treated like a cottar-wife?"
"High and low share alike the vengeance of the Council, and Argyle lost his head for some such bubble. I cannot forget how, in the January of '82, six years ago (faith, I am getting quite an old spinster!), Claver'se and his troop took a fancy to quarter themselves at our house of Maxwelton, because my youngest sister had been christened by that poor man Ichabod Bummel, who carries misfortune wherever he shows his long nose. The cavalier troopers ate and drank up all they could lay hands on, in cellar, buttery, and barnyard; and I was terrified to death by the clank of their jack-boots and long rapiers, as they laughed and swore, and pursued the servants up one stair and down another. But Claver'se drew his chair in by the hall-fire, and taking me upon his knee, looked on me so kindly with his great black eyes, that I forgot the horror my mother's tales of him had inspired me with; and he kissed me twice, saying I would be the bonniest lass in all Nithsdale,--and has it not come true? But Colonel Grahame is so ferocious----"