There was scorn unutterable on the lad's face as he turned
aside.

"When I joined Middleton's horse and accepted service under
you, I held you to be at least a gentleman," was his daring
rejoinder.

For an instant that dangerous light gleamed again from his
companion's eye. Then, as before, the lids drooped, and, as
before, he laughed.

"Gentleman!" he mocked. "On my soul, that's good! And what
may you know of gentlemen, Sir Scot? Think you a gentleman is
a Jack Presbyter, or a droning member of your kirk committee,
strutting it like a crow in the gutter? Gadswounds, boy, when
I was your age, and George Villiers lived - "

"Oh, have done!" broke in the youth impetuously. "Suffer me to
leave you, Sir Crispin, to your bottle, your croaking, and your
memories."

"Aye, go your ways, sir; you'd be sorry company for a dead man
- the sorriest ever my evil star led me into. The door is
yonder, and should you chance to break your saintly neck on the
stairs, it is like to be well for both of us."

And with that Sir Crispin Galliard lay back in his chair once
more, and took up the thread of his interrupted song