Chapter 11

Let them have meat enough, woman--half a hen;
There be old rotten pilchards--put them off too;
'Tis but a little new anointing of them,
And a strong onion, that confounds the savour.

Love's Pilgrimage.

THE thunderbolt, which had stunned all who were within hearing of it,
had only served to awaken the bold and inventive genius of the flower of
majors-domo. Almost before the clatter had ceased, and while there was
yet scarce an assurance whether the castle was standing or falling,
Caleb exclaimed, "Heaven be praised! this comes to hand like the boul of
a pint-stoup." He then barred the kitchen door in the face of the Lord
Keeper's servant, whom he perceived returning from the party at the
gate, and muttering, "How the deil cam he in?--but deil may care. Mysie,
what are ye sitting shaking and greeting in the chimney-neuk for? Come
here--or stay where ye are, and skirl as loud as ye can; it's a' ye're
gude for. I say, ye auld deevil, skirl--skirl--louder--louder, woman;
gar the gentles hear ye in the ha'. I have heard ye as far off as the
Bass for a less matter. And stay--down wi' that crockery----"

And with a sweeping blow, he threw down from a shelf some articles of
pewter and earthenware. He exalted his voice amid the clatter, shouting
and roaring in a manner which changed Mysie's hysterical terrors of the
thunder into fears that her old fellow-servant was gone distracted. "He
has dung down a' the bits o' pigs, too--the only thing we had left
to haud a soup milk--and he has spilt the hatted hit that was for the
Master's dinner. Mercy save us, the auld man's gaen clean and clear wud
wi' the thunner!"

"Haud your tongue, ye b----!" said Caleb, in the impetuous and
overbearing triumph of successful invention, "a's provided now--dinner
and a'thing; the thunner's done a' in a clap of a hand!"

"Puir man, he's muckle astray," said Mysie, looking at him with a
mixture of pity and alarm; "I wish he may ever come come hame to himsell
again."

"Here, ye auld doited deevil," said Caleb, still exulting
in his extrication from a dilemma which had seemed insurmountable;
"keep the strange man out of the kitchen; swear the thunner
came down the chimney and spoiled the best dinner ye ever
dressed--beef--bacon--kid--lark--leveret--wild-fowl--venison, and what
not. Lay it on thick, and never mind expenses. I'll awa' up to the
la'. Make a' the confusion ye can; but be sure ye keep out the strange
servant."

With these charges to his ally, Caleb posted up to the hall, but
stopping to reconnoitre through an aperture, which time, for the
convenience of many a domestic in succession, had made in the