The widow Mause Headrigg, between fear for her son's life and an overstrained and enthusiastic zeal, which reproached her for consenting even tacitly to belie her religious sentiments, was in a strange quandary.

The other servants quaked for they knew not well what.

Cuddie alone, with the look of supreme indifference and stupidity which a Scottish peasant can at times assume as a mask for considerable shrewdness and craft, continued to swallow large spoonfuls of his broth, to command which he had drawn within his sphere the large vessel that contained it, and helped himself, amid the confusion, to a sevenfold portion.
"What is your pleasure here, gentlemen ?" said Milnwood, humbling himself before the satellites of power.
"We come in behalf of the king," answered Bothwell; "why the devil did you keep us so long standing at the door ?" "We were at dinner," answered Milnwood, "and the door was locked, as is usual in landward towns [Note: The Scots retain the use of the word town in its comprehensive Saxon meaning, as a place of habitation.

A mansion or a farm house, though solitary, is called the town.

A landward town is a dwelling situated in the country.] in this country.