Page:Scott - Tales of my Landlord - 3rd series - 1819.djvu/216

206 washing the cup and spilling the ale, and be damned to her!"

"I was bred in France," answered Anderson, "where nobody drinks after another out of the same cup, unless it be after a young lady."

"The te'ils in their nicety," said Donald; "and if the ale be gude, fat the waur is't that another man's beard's been in the queich before ye?"

Anderson's companion drank without observing the ceremony which had given Donald so much offence, and both of them followed their master into the low arched stone hall, which was the common rendezvous of a Highland family. A large fire of peats in the huge chimney at the upper end shed a dim light through the apartment, and was rendered necessary by the damp, by which, even during the summer, the apartment was rendered uncomfortable. Twenty or thirty targets, as many claymores, with dirks, and plaids, and guns, both match-lock and fire-lock, and long