Page:The Monastery, Volume 1 - Scott (1820).djvu/28

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18
INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE.

minced collops, and a bottle of sherry—D'ye think I wad come and ask you to go to keep company with ony bit English rider, that sups on toasted cheese and a cheerer of rum-toddy? This is a gentleman every inch of him, and a virtuoso, a clean virtuoso—a sad-coloured stand of claiths, and a wig like the curled back of a mug-ewe. The very first question he speered was about the auld draw-brig that has been at the bottom of the water these twalscore years—I have seen the fundations when we were sticking saumon—And how the deevil suld he ken ony thing about the auld draw-brig, unless he were a virtuoso?"

David being a virtuoso in his own way, and moreover a landholder and heritor, was a qualified judge of all who frequented his house, and therefore I could not avoid again tying the strings of my knees.

"That's right, Captain," vociferated David; "you twa will be as thick as three in a bed an' ance ye foregather. I haeną seen the like o' him my very sell since I saw the

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