But, Andrew Arnot, this is a long tale of yours, and we will cut it with a drink; as the Highlander says, Skeoch doch nan skial ['Cut a tale with a drink;' an expression used when a man preaches over his liquor, as bons vivants say in England.

S.]; and that 's good Gaelic .-- Here is to the Countess Isabelle of Croye, and a better husband to her than Campobasso, who is a base Italian cullion!--And now, Andrew Arnot, what said the muleteer to this yeoman of thine ?" "Why, he told him in secrecy, if it please your Lordship," continued Arnot, "that these two ladies whom he had presently before convoyed up to the Castle in the close litters, were great ladies, who had been living in secret at his house for some days, and that the King had visited them more than once very privately, and had done them great honour; and that they had fled up to the Castle, as he believed, for fear of the Count de Crevecoeur, the Duke of Burgundy's ambassador, whose approach was just announced by an advanced courier." "Ay, Andrew, come you there to me ?" said Guthrie.

"Then I will be sworn it was the Countess whose voice I heard singing to the lute, as I came even now through the inner court--the sound came from the bay windows of the Dauphin's Tower; and such melody was there as no one ever heard before in the Castle of Plessis of the Park.

By my faith, I thought it was the music of the Fairy Melusina's making.

There I stood--though I knew your board was covered, and that you were all impatient--there I stood like--" [The Fairy Melusina: a water fay who married a mortal on condition that she should be allowed to spend her Saturdays in deep seclusion.