Page:Walter Scott - The Monastery (Henry Frowde, 1912).djvu/42

 Captain Clutterbuck, that's a very civil gentleman, and has little to do forby telling a' the auld cracks about the abbey, and dwells just hard by. Then says the gentleman to me, "Sir," says he, very civilly, "have the goodness to step to Captain Clutterbuck with my compliments, and say I am a stranger, who have been led to these parts chiefly by the fame of these ruins, and that I would call upon him, but the hour is late." And mair he said that I have forgotten, but I weel remember it ended, "And, landlord, get a bottle of your best sherry, and supper for two." Ye wadna have had me refuse to do the gentleman's bidding, and me a publican?'

'Well, David,' said I, 'I wish your virtuoso had taken a fitter hour; but as you say he is a gentleman'

'I'se uphaud him that: the order speaks for itsell—a bottle of sherry—minched collops and a fowl—that 's speaking like a gentleman, I trow? That 's right, Captain, button weel up, the night's raw; but the water's clearing for a' that; we'll be on't neist night wi' my lord's boats, and we'll hae ill luck if I dinna send you a kipper to relish your ale at e'en.'

In five minutes after this dialogue, I found myself in the parlour of the George, and in the presence of the stranger.

He was a grave personage, about my own age (which we shall call about fifty), and really had, as my friend David expressed it, something in his face that inclined men to oblige and to serve him. Yet this expression of authority was not at all of the cast which I have seen in the countenance of a general of brigade, neither was the stranger's dress at all martial. It consisted of a uniform suit of iron-grey clothes, cut in rather an old-fashioned form. His legs were defended with strong leathern gambadoes, which, according to an antiquarian contrivance, opened at the sides, and were secured by steel clasps. His countenance was worn as much by toil and sorrow as by age, for it intimated that he had seen and endured much. His