“Less will no serve him,” said Caleb; “but ye had best take a visie of him through the wicket before opening the gate; it’s no every ane we suld let into this castle.”

“What! do you suppose him to be a messenger come to arrest me for debt?” said Ravenswood.

“A messenger arrest your honour for debt, and in your Castle of Wolf’s Crag!  Your honour is jesting wi’ auld Caleb this morning.”  However, he whispered in his ear, as he followed him out, “I would be loth to do ony decent man a prejudice in your honour’s gude opinion; but I would tak twa looks o’ that chield before I let him within these walls.”

He was not an officer of the law, however; being no less a person than Captain Craigengelt, with his nose as red as a comfortable cup of brandy could make it, his laced cocked hat set a little aside upon the top of his black riding periwig, a sword by his side and pistols at his holsters, and his person arrayed in a riding suit, laid over with tarnished lace—­the very moral of one who would say, “Stand to a true man.”

When the Master had recognised him, he ordered the gates to be opened.  “I suppose,” he said, “Captain Craigengelt, there are no such weighty matters betwixt you and me, but may be discussed in this place.  I have company in the castle at present, and the terms upon which we last parted must excuse my asking you to make part of them.”

Craigengelt, although possessing the very perfection of impudence, was somewhat abashed by this unfavourable reception.  “He had no intention,” he said, “to force himself upon the Master of Ravenswood’s hospitality; he was in the honourable service of bearing a message to him from a friend, otherwise the Master of Ravenswood should not have had reason to complain of this intrusion.”

“Let it be short, sir,” said the Master, “for that will be the best apology.  Who is the gentleman who is so fortunate as to have your services as a messenger?”

“My friend, Mr. Hayston of Bucklaw,” answered Craigengelt, with conscious importance, and that confidence which the acknowledged courage of his principal inspired, “who conceives himself to have been treated by you with something much short of the respect which he had reason to demand, and, therefore is resolved to exact satisfaction.  I bring with me,” said he, taking a piece of paper out of his pocket, “the precise length of his sword; and he requests you will meet him, accompanied by a friend, and equally armed, at any place within a mile of the castle, when I shall give attendance as umpire, or second, on his behoof.”

“Satisfaction! and equal arms!” repeated Ravenswood, who, the reader will recollect, had no reason to suppose he had given the slightest offence to his late intimate; “upon my word, Captain Craigengelt, either you have invented the most improbable falsehood that ever came into the mind of such a person, or your morning draught has been somewhat of the strongest.  What could persuade Bucklaw to send me such a message?”