Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/38

 Grimslees, the Captain is no in his bed? and a gentleman at our house has ordered a fowl and minced collops, and a bottle of sherry, and has sent to ask him to supper, to tell him all about the abbey.'

'Na,' answered Luckie Grimslees, in the true sleepy tone of a Scottish matron when ten o'clock is going to strike, 'he 's no in his bed, but I'se warrant him no gae out at this time o' night to keep folks sitting up waiting for him: the Captain's a decent man.'

I plainly perceived this last compliment was made for my hearing, by way both of indicating and of recommending the course of conduct which Mrs. Grimslees desired I should pursue. But I had not been knocked about the world for thirty years and odd, and lived a bluff bachelor all the while, to come home and be put under petticoat government by my landlady. Accordingly I opened my chamber-door, and desired my old friend David to walk upstairs.

'Captain,' said he, as he entered, 'I am as glad to find you up as if I had hooked a twenty-pound saumon. There's a gentleman up yonder that will not sleep sound in his bed this blessed night unless he has the pleasure to drink a glass of wine with you.'

'You know, David,' I replied, with becoming dignity, 'that I cannot with propriety go out to visit strangers at this time of night, or accept of invitations from people of whom I know nothing.'

David swore a round oath, and added, 'Was ever the like heard of? He has ordered a fowl and egg sauce, a pancake and minched collops and a bottle of sherry. D'ye think I wad come and ask you to go to keep company with ony bit English rider that sups on toasted cheese, and a cheerer of rum-toddy? This is a gentleman every inch of him, and a virtuoso, a clean virtuoso—a sad-coloured stand of claithes, and a wig like the curled back of a mug-ewe. The very first question he speered was about the auld