Chapter 6

For this are all these warriors come,
To hear an idle tale;
And o'er our death-accustom'd arms
Shall silly tears prevail?

HENRY MACKENZIE.

ON the evening of the day when the Lord Keeper and his daughter were
saved from such imminent peril, two strangers were seated in the most
private apartment of a small obscure inn, or rather alehouse, called
the Tod's Den [Hole], about three or four [five or six] miles from the
Castle of Ravenswood and as far from the ruinous tower of Wolf's Crag,
betwixt which two places it was situated.

One of these strangers was about forty years of age, tall, and thin in
the flanks, with an aquiline nose, dark penetrating eyes, and a shrewd
but sinister cast of countenance. The other was about fifteen years
younger, short, stout, ruddy-faced, and red-haired, with an open,
resolute, and cheerful eye, to which careless and fearless freedom and
inward daring gave fire and expression, notwithstanding its light grey
colour. A stoup of wine (for in those days it was erved out from the
cask in pewter flagons) was placed on the table, and each had his quaigh
or bicker before him. But there was little appearance of conviviality.
With folded arms, and looks of anxious expectation, they eyed each other
in silence, each wrapt in his own thoughts, and holding no communication
with his neighbour. At length the younger broke silence by exclaiming:
"What the foul fiend can detain the Master so long? He must have
miscarried in his enterprise. Why did you dissuade me from going with
him?"

"One man is enough to right his own wrong," said the taller and older
personage; "we venture our lives for him in coming thus far on such an
errand."

"You are but a craven after all, Craigengelt," answered the younger,
"and that's what many folk have thought you before now." "But what none
has dared to tell me," said Craigengelt, laying his hand on the hilt of
his sword; "and, but that I hold a hasty man no better than a fool, I
would----" he paused for his companion's answer.

"WOULD you?" said the other, coolly; "and why do you not then?"

Craigengelt drew his cutlass an inch or two, and then returned it with
violence into the scabbard--"Because there is a deeper stake to be
played for than the lives of twenty harebrained gowks like you."

"You are right there," said his companion, "for it if were not that
these forfeitures, and that last fine that the old driveller Turntippet
is gaping for, and which, I dare say, is laid on by this time, have
fairly driven me out of house and home, I were a coxcomb and a cuckoo to
boot to trust your fair promises of