"Slow, my lord—tiresome slow. 'Tis hard to make him to forget his plebeian ancestors. How fares it with the prisoner—he whom you have mewed within the dungeon?"
"De Claverlok, mean you? Bah! 'Tis a gruff old warrior, that—with his ehs! and ehs! Still doth he stubbornly refuse to pledge me his word to separate himself from Sir Richard. Nor, by my faith, can I gain his promise to fight beneath our standard."
"What then—the block, my lord?" interrogated Lady Douglas, yawning.
"Aye—the block," replied Douglas, quietly.
On the morning following the day upon which this dialogue took place, Sir Richard sauntered down the stairs to find Lady Anna reclining indolently at ease within the curtained alcove where first he had met her. She had with her a falcon, which she was stroking and feeding with bits of bread held daintily between her red lips. She looked up, greeting the young knight's coming with a rare smile.
"By the mass, dear Richard," said she, "and how early we are! Was it the topsy-turvy going of the men at daybreak that brings you so soon afoot? Did you hear the sounding of the tucket-sonuance in yonder yard? Or, tell me, boy, is it but another trifle of a duel?"
Right well was she aware that Sir Richard disliked to be called a boy, and she appeared to take a secret delight in thus teasing him. As was usual, he denied the propriety of the name.
"Tut, tut, then—bloody giant," said she, laughing merrily. "Is it, I beg of you, another play of blades?"
"In the whole of Scotland," retorted Sir Richard, "remains there a warrior whom I have not met?"
He had encountered three of them the day before, disarming two and slightly wounding the other.