Old Mortality, Volume 2. by Sir Walter Scott
page 39 of 304 (12%)
page 39 of 304 (12%)
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"Did you ever," said he to Major Bellenden, "see such an absurd
automaton? One would swear it moves upon springs--Can it speak, think you?" "O, ay," said the Major; "that seems to be one of my old acquaintance, a genuine puritan of the right pharisaical leaven.--Stay--he coughs and hems; he is about to summon the Castle with the but-end of a sermon, instead of a parley on the trumpet." The veteran, who in his day had had many an opportunity to become acquainted with the manners of these religionists, was not far mistaken in his conjecture; only that, instead of a prose exordium, the Laird of Langcale--for it was no less a personage--uplifted, with a Stentorian voice, a verse of the twenty-fourth Psalm: "Ye gates lift up your heads! ye doors, Doors that do last for aye, Be lifted up"-- "I told you so," said the Major to Evandale, and then presented himself at the entrance of the barricade, demanding to know for what purpose or intent he made that doleful noise, like a hog in a high wind, beneath the gates of the Castle. "I come," replied the ambassador, in a high and shrill voice, and without any of the usual salutations or deferences,--"I come from the godly army of the Solemn League and Covenant, to speak with two carnal malignants, William Maxwell, called Lord Evandale, and Miles Bellenden of Charnwood." "And what have you to say to Miles Bellenden and Lord Evandale?" answered the Major. |
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