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268 first declined, and then accepted, a seat presented by the master of the ceremonies, procured him three rounds of applause.

"Deil hae me, if they are na a mad thegither!" said Dinmont, "occupying with less ceremony a seat at the bottom of the table, "or else they hae ta'en Yule before it comes, and are ganging a guisarding."

A large glass of claret was offered to Mannering, who drank it to the health of the reigning monarch. "You are, I presume to guess," said the monarch, "that celebrated Sir Miles Mannering, so renowned in the French wars, and may well pronounce to us if the wines of Gascony lose their flavour in our more northern realm."

Mannering, agreeably flattered by this allusion to the fame of his celebrated ancestor, replied, by professing himself only a distant relation of the prieux chevalier, and added, "that in his opinion the wine was superlatively good."