Chapter 5 - Page 2

to
himself; and suddenly changing his tone, he said aloud,--"I pray you,
neighbour David, when are you and I to have a settlement for the
bullion wherewith I supplied you to mount yonder hall-clock at
Theobald's, and that other whirligig that you made for the Duke of
Buckingham? I have had the Spanish house to satisfy for the ingots,
and I must needs put you in mind that you have been eight months
behind-hand."

There is something so sharp and _aigre_ in the demand of a peremptory
dun, that no human tympanum, however inaccessible to other tones, can
resist the application. David Ramsay started at once from his reverie,
and answered in a pettish tone, "Wow, George, man, what needs aw this
din about sax score o' pounds? Aw the world kens I can answer aw
claims on me, and you proffered yourself fair time, till his maist
gracious Majesty and the noble Duke suld make settled accompts wi' me;
and ye may ken, by your ain experience, that I canna gang rowting like
an unmannered Highland stot to their doors, as ye come to mine."

Heriot laughed, and replied, "Well, David, I see a demand of money is
like a bucket of water about your ears, and makes you a man of the
world at once. And now, friend, will you tell me, like a Christian
man, if you will dine with me to-morrow at noon, and bring pretty
Mistress Margaret, my god-daughter, with you, to meet with our noble
young countryman, the Lord
of Glenvarloch?"

"The young Lord of Glenvarloch!" said the old mechanist; "wi' aw my
heart, and blithe I will be to see him again. We have not met these
forty years--he was twa years before me at the humanity classes--he is
a sweet youth."

"That was his father--his father--his father!--you old dotard Dot-and-
carry-one that you are," answered the goldsmith. "A sweet youth he
would have been by this time, had he lived, worthy nobleman! This is
his son, the Lord Nigel."

"His son!" said Ramsay; "maybe he will want something of a
chronometer, or watch--few gallants care to be without them now-a-
days."

"He may buy half your stock-in-trade, if ever he comes to his own, for
what I know," said his friend; "but, David, remember your bond, and
use me not as you did when my housewife had the sheep's-head and the
cock-a-leeky boiling for you as late as two of the clock afternoon."

"She had the more credit by her cookery," answered David, now fully
awake; "a sheep's-head over-boiled, were poison, according to our
saying."

"Well," answered Master George, "but as there will be no sheep's-head
to-morrow, it may chance you to spoil a dinner which a