--Your wife! Heaven preserve us! Weel,
after a', I hae reason to be thankfu' I hae neither wife nor
bairns on a day like this!
_Sir Alex_.--Behold an envoy from the English camp,
Sent with proposals, or some crafty truce.
_Hugh Elliot_.--Let me entreat you, then, most noble sir,
Give him all courtesy; and if his terms
Be such as we in honour may accept,
Refuse them not by saying, WE WILL DIE.
_Enter_ EARL PERCY _and_ Attendants.
_Percy_.--Good morrow, my Scotch cousins!
My gracious sovereign, your right lawful master,
Hath, in his mercy, left you these conditions--
Now to throw wide your gates, and, if ye choose,
Go walk into the Tweed, and drown your treason;
Or run, like scapegoats, to the wilderness,
Bearing your sins, and half a week's provision;
Or, should these terms not meet your approbation,
Ere midnight we shall send some _fleeter messengers_.
So now, old Governor, my master's answer?
_Provost Ramsay_.--The mischief's in your impudence! But
were I Sir Alexander, the only answer your master should hae,
would be your weel-bred tongue sent back upon the end o' an
arrow; an' that wad be as _fleet a messenger_, as ye talk
about _fleet messengers_, as ony I ken o'.
_Percy_.--Peace, thou barbarian! keep thy frog's throat closed.
I say, old greybeard, hast thou found an answer?
_Sir Alex_.
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