a helmet or bonnet when it is set on my wooden soldan; then I am
sure to fetch it down. But when there is a plume of feathers in it
that nod, and two eyes gleaming fiercely from under the shadow of
the visor, and when the whole is dancing about here and there, I
acknowledge it puts out my hand of fence."

"So, if men would but stand stock still like your soldan, you would
play the tyrant with them, Master Proudfute?"

"In time, and with practice, I conclude I might," answered Oliver.
"But here we come up with the rest of them. Bailie Craigdallie
looks angry, but it is not his kind of anger that frightens me."

You are to recollect, gentle reader, that as soon as the bailie
and those who attended him saw that the smith had come up to the
forlorn bonnet maker, and that the stranger had retreated, they gave
themselves no trouble about advancing further to his assistance,
which they regarded as quite ensured by the presence of the redoubted
Henry Gow. They had resumed their straight road to Kinfauns, desirous
that nothing should delay the execution of their mission. As some
time had elapsed ere the bonnet maker and the smith rejoined the
party, Bailie Craigdallie asked them, and Henry Smith in particular,
what they meant by dallying away precious time by riding uphill
after the falconer.

"By the mass, it was not my fault, Master Bailie," replied the
smith. "If ye will couple up an ordinary Low Country greyhound
with a Highland wolf dog, you must not blame the first of them for
taking the direction in which it pleases the last to drag him on.
It was so, and not otherwise, with my neighbour Oliver Proudfute.