"
"No need ye should," said Richie; "there would have been small wisdom
in crying roast-meat."
"Peace," said his bride, "once more.--This paper," she continued,
delivering another to Lord Glenvarloch, "is also your property--take
it, but spare me the question how it came into my custody."
The king had bustled forward beside Lord Glenvarloch, and fixing an
eager eye on the writing, exclaimed--"Body of ourselves, it is our
royal sign-manual for the money which was so long out of sight!--How
came you by it, Mistress Bride?"
"It is a secret," said Martha, dryly.
"A secret which my tongue shall never utter," said Richie,
resolutely,--"unless the king commands me on my allegiance."
"I do--I do command you," said James, trembling and stammering with
the impatient curiosity of a gossip; while Sir Mungo, with more
malicious anxiety to get at the bottom of the mystery, stooped his
long thin form forward like a bent fishing-rod, raised his thin grey
locks from his ear, and curved his hand behind it to collect every
vibration of the expected intelligence. Martha in the meantime frowned
most ominously on Richie, who went on undauntedly to inform the king,
"that his deceased father-in-law, a good careful man in the main, had
a' touch of worldly wisdom about him, that at times marred the
uprightness of his walk; he liked to dabble among his neighbour's
gear, and some of it would at times stick to his fingers in the
handling.
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