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Sir Arthur only stipulated, that a little ragged boy, for the guerdon of one penny sterling, should run to meet his coachman, and turn his equipage back to Knockwinnock.
So this Sir Richard, that they ca'd Red-hand, drew up wi' the auld Knockwinnock o' that day for then they were Knockwinnocks of that Ilk and wad fain marry his only daughter, that was to have the castle and the land. Then there was siccan a ca'-thro', as the like was never seen; and she's be burnt, and he's be slain, was the best words o' their mouths.
He was, as might have been expected from this state of spirits, first at the place of meeting, and, as might also have been anticipated, his looks were so intently directed towards the road from Knockwinnock Castles that he was only apprized of the arrival of the Monkbarns division by the gee-hupping of the postilion, as the post-chaise lumbered up behind him.
"And what of that?" he resumed, in a tone affectedly cheerful "it is only a house we can't get out of, after all Suppose a fit of the gout, and Knockwinnock would be the same Ay, ay, Monkbarns we'll call it a fit of the gout without the d d pain." But his eyes swelled with tears as he spoke, and his faltering accent marked how much this assumed gaiety cost him.
Some little disagreement, such as we have mentioned, arising out of business, or politics, had divided the houses of Knockwinnock and Monkbarns, when the emissary of the latter arrived to discharge his errand.
"What! was it not by your honours advice and counsel that Monkbarns and the Knight of Knockwinnock came here then?" "Aha yes; but it was by another circumstance. I did not know dat dey would have found de treasure, mine friend; though I did guess, by such a tintamarre, and cough, and sneeze, and groan, among de spirit one other night here, dat there might be treasure and bullion hereabout.
Naebody ever kenn'd whare his uncle the prior earded him, or what he did wi' his gowd and silver, for he stood on the right o' halie kirk, and wad gie nae account to onybody. But the prophecy gat abroad in the country, that whenever Misticot's grave was fund out, the estate of Knockwinnock should be lost and won."
"Sweepclean," said he, as he entered, to the officer who stood respectfully at the door, "you must sweep yourself clean out of Knockwinnock Castle, with all your followers, tag-rag and bob-tail. Seest thou this paper, man?"
"I wot," said the beggar, "I have often heard that when I was a bairn If Malcolm the Misticot's grave were fun', The lands of Knockwinnock were lost and won." Oldbuck, with his spectacles on his nose, had already knelt down on the monument, and was tracing, partly with his eye, partly with his finger, the mouldered devices upon the effigy of the deceased warrior.
"It is the Knockwinnock arms, sure enough," he exclaimed, "quarterly with the coat of Wardour." "Richard, called the red-handed Wardour, married Sybil Knockwinnock, the heiress of the Saxon family, and by that alliance," said Sir Arthur, "brought the castle and estate into the name of Wardour, in the year of God 1150."
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