Chapter 10 - Page 2

discharged by the Master; but this was
uttered in a very dubious and oracular strain, for, like Louis XIV.,
Caleb Balderstone hesitated to carry finesse so far as direct falsehood,
and was content to deceive, if possible, without directly lying.

This annunciation was received with surprise by some, with laughter
by others, and with dismay by the expelled lackeys, who endeavoured to
demonstrate that their right of readmission, for the purpose of waiting
upon their master and mistress, was at least indisputable. But Caleb was
not in a humour to understand or admit any distinctions. He stuck to his
original proposition with that dogged but convenient pertinacity which
is armed against all conviction, and deaf to all reasoning. Bucklaw now
came from the rear of the party, and demanded admittance in a very angry
tone. But the resolution of Caleb was immovable.

"If the king on the throne were at the gate," he declared, "his ten
fingers should never open it contrair to the established use and wont of
the family of Ravenswood, and his duty as their head-servant."

Bucklaw was now extremely incensed, and with more oaths and curses
than we care to repeat, declared himself most unworthily treated, and
demanded peremptorily to speak with the Master of Ravenswood himself.

But to this also Caleb turned a deaf ear. "He's as soon a-bleeze as a
tap of tow, the lad Bucklaw," he said; "but the deil of ony master's
face he shall see till he has sleepit and waken'd on't. He'll ken
himsell better the morn's morning. It sets the like o' him, to be
bringing a crew of drunken hunters here, when he kens there is but
little preparation to sloken his ain drought." And he disappeared from
the window, leaving them all to digest their exclusion as they best
might.

But another person, of whose presence Caleb, in the animation of the
debate, was not aware, had listened in silence to its progress. This
was the principal domestic of the stranger--a man of trust and
consequence--the same who, in the hunting-field, had accommodated
Bucklaw with the use of his horse. He was in the stable when Caleb had
contrived the expulsion of his fellow-servants, and thus avoided sharing
the same fate, from which his personal importance would certainly not
have otherwise saved him.

This personage perceived the manoeuvre of Caleb, easily appreciated the
motive of his conduct, and knowing his master's intentions towards the
family of Ravenswood, had no difficulty as to the line of conduct he
ought to adopt. He took the place of Caleb (unperceived by the latter)
at the post of audience which he had just left, and announced to the
assembled domestics, "That it was his master's pleasure that