“Praise be blest!” said Caleb to himself, “ae leaf of the muckle gate has been swung to wi’ yestreen’s wind, and I think I can manage to shut the ither.”

But he was desirous, like a prudent governor, at the same time to get rid, if possible, of the internal enemy, in which light he considered almost every one who eat and drank, ere he took measures to exclude those whom their jocund noise now pronounced to be near at hand.  He waited, therefore, with impatience until his master had shown his two principal guests into the Tower, and then commenced his operations.

“I think,” he said to the stranger menials, “that, as they are bringing the stag’s head to the castle in all honour, we, who are indwellers, should receive them at the gate.”

The unwary grooms had no sooner hurried out, in compliance with this insidious hint, than, one folding-door of the ancient gate being already closed by the wind, as has been already intimated, honest Caleb lost no time in shutting the other with a clang, which resounded from donjon-vault to battlement.  Having thus secured the pass, he forthwith indulged the excluded huntsmen in brief parley, from a small projecting window, or shot-hole, through which, in former days, the warders were wont to reconnoitre those who presented themselves before the gates.  He gave them to understand, in a short and pity speech, that the gate of the castle was never on any account opened during meal-times; that his honour, the Master of Ravenswood, and some guests of quality, had just sat down to dinner; that there was excellent brandy at the hostler-wife’s at Wolf’s Hope down below; and he held out some obscure hint that the reckoning would be discharged by the Master; but this was uttered in a very dubious and oracular strain, for, like Louis XIV., Caleb Balderstone hesitated to carry finesse so far as direct falsehood, and was content to deceive, if possible, without directly lying.

This annunciation was received with surprise by some, with laughter by others, and with dismay by the expelled lackeys, who endeavoured to demonstrate that their right of readmission, for the purpose of waiting upon their master and mistress, was at least indisputable.  But Caleb was not in a humour to understand or admit any distinctions.  He stuck to his original proposition with that dogged but convenient pertinacity which is armed against all conviction, and deaf to all reasoning.  Bucklaw now came from the rear of the party, and demanded admittance in a very angry tone.  But the resolution of Caleb was immovable.

“If the king on the throne were at the gate,” he declared, “his ten fingers should never open it contrair to the established use and wont of the family of Ravenswood, and his duty as their head-servant.”

Bucklaw was now extremely incensed, and with more oaths and curses than we care to repeat, declared himself most unworthily treated, and demanded peremptorily to speak with the Master of Ravenswood himself.