After another toast or two, Jeanie, Mrs. Dolly, and such of the female
natives as had honoured the feast with their presence, retired to David's
new dwelling at Auchingower, and left the gentlemen to their potations.
The feast proceeded with great glee. The conversation, where Duncan had
it under his direction, was not indeed always strictly canonical, but
David Deans escaped any risk of being scandalised, by engaging with one
of his neighbours in a recapitulation of the sufferings of Ayrshire and
Lanarkshire, during what was called the invasion of the Highland Host;
the prudent Mr. Meiklehose cautioning them from time to time to lower
their voices, "for that Duncan Knock's father had been at that onslaught,
and brought back muckle gude plenishing, and that Duncan was no unlikely
to hae been there himself, for what he kend."
Meanwhile, as the mirth grew fast and furious, the graver members of the
party began to escape as well as they could. David Deans accomplished his
retreat, and Butler anxiously watched an opportunity to follow him.
Knockdunder, however, desirous, he said, of knowing what stuff was in the
new minister, had no intention to part with him so easily, but kept him
pinned to his side, watching him sedulously, and with obliging violence
filling his glass to the brim, as often as he could seize an opportunity
of doing so.
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