But to this also Caleb turned a deaf ear.  “He’s as soon a-bleeze as a tap of tow, the lad Bucklaw,” he said; “but the deil of ony master’s face he shall see till he has sleepit and waken’d on’t.  He’ll ken himsell better the morn’s morning.  It sets the like o’ him, to be bringing a crew of drunken hunters here, when he kens there is but little preparation to sloken his ain drought.”  And he disappeared from the window, leaving them all to digest their exclusion as they best might.

But another person, of whose presence Caleb, in the animation of the debate, was not aware, had listened in silence to its progress.  This was the principal domestic of the stranger—­a man of trust and consequence—­the same who, in the hunting-field, had accommodated Bucklaw with the use of his horse.  He was in the stable when Caleb had contrived the expulsion of his fellow-servants, and thus avoided sharing the same fate, from which his personal importance would certainly not have otherwise saved him.

This personage perceived the manoeuvre of Caleb, easily appreciated the motive of his conduct, and knowing his master’s intentions towards the family of Ravenswood, had no difficulty as to the line of conduct he ought to adopt.  He took the place of Caleb (unperceived by the latter) at the post of audience which he had just left, and announced to the assembled domestics, “That it was his master’s pleasure that Lord Bittlebrain’s retinue and his own should go down to the adjacent change-house and call for what refreshments they might have occasion for, and he should take care to discharge the lawing.”

The jolly troop of huntsmen retired from the inhospitable gate of Wolf’s Crag, execrating, as they descended the steep pathway, the niggard and unworthy disposition of the proprietor, and damning, with more than silvan license, both the castle and its inhabitants.  Bucklaw, with many qualities which would have made him a man of worth and judgment in more favourable circumstances, had been so utterly neglected in point of education, that he was apt to think and feel according to the ideas of the companions of his pleasures.  The praises which had recently been heaped upon himself he contrasted with the general abuse now levelled against Ravenswood; he recalled to his mind the dull and monotonous days he had spent in the Tower of Wolf’s Crag, compared with the joviality of his usual life; he felt with great indignation his exclusion from the castle, which he considered as a gross affront, and every mingled feeling led him to break off the union which he had formed with the Master of Ravenswood.

On arriving at the change-house of the village of Wolf’s Hope, he unexpectedly met with an acquaintance just alighting from his horse.  This was no other than the very respectable Captain Craigengelt, who immediately came up to him, and, without appearing to retain any recollection of the indifferent terms on which they had parted, shook him by the hand in the warmest manner possible.  A warm grasp of the hand was what Bucklaw could never help returning with cordiality, and no sooner had Craigengelt felt the pressure of his fingers than he knew the terms on which he stood with him.