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"You have made good speed, and the beginning of a fray is better than the end of a feast. And, by St. Boswell, to-morrow we shall have it, lad! The King came in to-day late is better than never and to-morrow we go with the Maid, to give these pock-puddings a taste of Scottish steel." "And the Maid, where is she, Randal?"
Jean looked on, eager to see some of the Scots of their own escort excel the English pock-puddings, but though Dandie and two or three more contended, the habits were too unfamiliar for them to win any great distinction, and George Douglas did not come forward; the competition was not for men of gentle blood, and success would have brought him forward in a manner it was desirable to avoid.
'With four or five of our own tall carles, we may win the castle, and laugh at the German pock-puddings, added Ringan. 'Let them gang their gate, and we'll free our leddies. George was tempted, but he shook his head. 'That were scarce knightly towards the Duke, he said. 'He has been gude friend to me, and I may not thus steal a march on him.
"Devil take that old man," said M'Aulay, "he would tell every thing, were it to cost one's life; but it's no jesting matter to you neither, my lord, for I reckon on your friendly and fraternal benevolence, as a near kinsman of our house, to help me out with the money due to these pock-puddings; or else, to be plain wi' ye, the deil a M'Aulay will there be at the muster, for curse me if I do not turn Covenanter rather than face these fellows without paying them; and, at the best, I shall be ill enough off, getting both the scaith and the scorn."
Tibb muttered betwixt her teeth "And it is the broth for my sick bairn, that maun make room for the dainty Southron's wastel-bread. It was a blithe time in Wight Wallace's day, or good King Robert's, when the pock-puddings gat naething here but hard straiks and bloody crowns. But we will see how it will a' end."
"We maun gar wheat-flour serve us for a blink," said Niel, in a tone of resignation; "it's no that ill food, though far frae being sae hearty or kindly to a Scotchman's stamach as the curney aitmeal is; the Englishers live amaist upon't; but, to be sure, the pock-puddings ken nae better."
The King's cheerful ridicule of the clumsy fellows who could not draw the bow was intended, with a prick of scorn under the laughter, to rouse up his rustic lieges to emulation, not to be behind the southern pock-puddings whose deadly arrows were, in every encounter between Scots and English, the chief danger to the fighting men of the north.
'He shall be put in better trim ere the English pock-puddings see him, said Douglas, looking at him, perhaps for the first time, as something unsuited to that orderly company. 'That is thine own affair, said Sir Patrick. 'Mine is that he should comport himself as becomes one of my troop. What's his name?
Andrew Fairservice was far from acquiescing in these arguments of expedience, and even ventured to enter a grumbling protest, "That it was an unco change to hae Scotland's laws made in England; and that, for his share, he wadna for a' the herring-barrels in Glasgow, and a' the tobacco-casks to boot, hae gien up the riding o' the Scots Parliament, or sent awa' our crown, and our sword, and our sceptre, and Mons Meg,* to be keepit by thae English pock-puddings in the Tower o' Lunnon.
It's shamefu' epicurism; but that's what we hae gotten frae the English pock-puddings." "Hout, never mind the English pock-puddings," said Luckie Lightbody; "try our puddings, Mr. Balderstone; there is black pudding and white-hass; try whilk ye like best." Ne'er a bit but she looks far better than when she married Gilbert, and then she was the bonniest lass in our parochine and the neist till't.
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