 he was a lord, might have enough
to do to look after his own castle. As to any threats of stouthrief oppression,
by rule of thumb, or via facti, as the law termed it, he would have Mr.
Balderston recollect, that new times were not as old times - that they lived on
the south of the Forth, and far from the Highlands - that his clients thought
they were able to protect themselves; but should they find themselves mistaken,
they would apply to the government for the protection of a corporal and four
red-coats, who,« said Mr. Dingwall, with a grin, »would be perfectly able to
secure them against Lord Ravenswood, and all that he or his followers could do
by the strong hand.«
    If Caleb could have concentrated all the lightnings of aristocracy in his
eye, to have struck dead this contemner of allegiance and privilege, he would
have launched them at his head, without respect to the consequences. As it was,
he was compelled to turn his course backward to the castle; and there he
remained for full half-a-day invisible and inaccessible even to Mysie,
sequestered in his own peculiar dungeon, where he sat burnishing a single
pewter-plate, and whistling »Maggie Lauder« six hours without intermission.
    The issue of this unfortunate requisition had shut against Caleb all
resources which could be derived from Wolf's Hope and its purlieus, the El
Dorado, or Peru, from which, in all former cases of exigence, he had been able
to extract some assistance. He had, indeed, in a manner, vowed that the deil
should have him, if ever he put the print of his foot within its causeway again.
He had hitherto kept his word; and, strange to tell, this secession had, as he
intended in some degree, the effect of a punishment upon the refractory feuars.
Mr. Balderston had been a person in their eyes connected with a superior order
of beings, whose presence used to grace their little festivities, whose advice
they found useful on many occasions, and whose communications gave a sort of
credit to their village. The place, they acknowledged, »didna look as it used to
do, and should do, since Mr. Caleb keepit the castle sae closely - but,
doubtless, touching the eggs and butter, it was a most unreasonable demand, as
Mr. Dingwall had justly made manifest.«
    Thus stood matters betwixt the parties, when the old butler, though it was
gall and wormwood to him, found himself obliged either to acknowledge before a
strange
