Excuse my pleasantry, he, he! But what are the useful properties of this fellow Bonthron ?" "Those of a bulldog," answered the knight, "he worries without barking." "You have no fear of his confessing ?" said the physician.
"Who can tell what the dread of approaching death may do ?" replied the patient.

"He has already shown a timorousness entirely alien from his ordinary sullenness of nature; he, that would scarce wash his hands after he had slain a man, is now afraid to see a dead body bleed." "Well," said the leech, "I must do something for him if I can, since it was to further my revenge that he struck yonder downright blow, though by ill luck it lighted not where it was intended." "And whose fault was that, timid villain," said Ramorny, "save thine own, who marked a rascal deer for a buck of the first head ?" "Benedicite, noble sir," replied the mediciner; "would you have me, who know little save of chamber practice, be as skilful of woodcraft as your noble self, or tell hart from hind, doe from roe, in a glade at midnight?
I misdoubted me little when I saw the figure run past us to the smith's habitation in the wynd, habited like a morrice dancer; and yet my mind partly misgave me whether it was our man, for methought he seemed less of stature.

But when he came out again, after so much time as to change his dress, and swaggered onward with buff coat and steel cap, whistling after the armourer's wonted fashion, I do own I was mistaken super totam materiem, and loosed your knighthood's bulldog upon him, who did his devoir most duly, though he pulled down the wrong deer.
Therefore, unless the accursed smith kill our poor friend stone dead on the spot, I am determined, if art may do it, that the ban dog Bonthron shall not miscarry." "It will put thine art to the test, man of medicine," said Ramorny; "for know that, having the worst of the combat, if our champion be not killed stone dead in the lists, he will be drawn forth of them by the heels, and without further ceremony knitted up to the gallows, as convicted of the murder; and when he hath swung there like a loose tassel for an hour or so, I think thou wilt hardly take it in hand to cure his broken neck." "I am of a different opinion, may it please your knighthood," answered Dwining, gently.

"I will carry him off from the very foot of the gallows into the land of faery, like King Arthur, or Sir Huon of Bordeaux, or Ugero the Dane; or I will, if I please, suffer him to dangle on the gibbet for a certain number of minutes, or hours, and then whisk him away from the sight of all, with as much ease as the wind wafts away the withered leaf." "This is idle boasting, sir leech," replied Ramorny.

"The whole mob of Perth will attend him to the gallows, each more eager than another to see the retainer of a nobleman die, for the slaughter of a cuckoldly citizen.