CHAPTER 10. TENDER AND TRUE
‘For I am now the Earlis son,
And not a banished, man.’—The Nut-Brown Maid.
‘O St. Andrew! St. Bride! Our Lady of Succour! St. Denys!—all the lave of you, that may be nearest in this fremd land,—come and aid him. It is the Master of Angus, ye ken—the hope of his house. He’ll build you churches, gie ye siller cups and braw vestments gin ye’ll bring him back. St. Andrew! St. Rule! St. Ninian!—you ken a Scots tongue! Stay his blood,—open his een,—come to help ane that ever loved you and did you honour!’
So wailed Ringan of the Raefoot, holding his master’s head on his knees, and binding up as best he might an ugly thrust in the side, and a blow which had crushed the steel cap into the midst of the hair. When he saw his master fall and the ladies captured, he had, with the better part of valour, rushed aside and hid himself in the thicket of thorns and hazels, where, being manifestly only a stray horseboy, no search was made for him. He rightly concluded that, dead or alive, his master might thus be better served than by vainly struggling over his fallen body.
It seemed as though, in answer to his invocation, a tremor began to pass through Douglas’s frame, and as Ringan exclaimed, ‘There! there!—he lives! Sir, sir! Blessings on the saints! I was sure that a French reiver’s lance could never be the end of the Master,’ George opened his eyes.
‘What is it?’ he said faintly. ‘Where are the ladies?’
‘Heed not the leddies the noo, sir, but let me bind your head. That cap has crushed like an egg-shell, and has cut you worse than the sword. Bide still, sir, I say, if ye mean to do any gude another time!’
‘The ladies—Ringan—’
‘The loons rid aff wi’ them, sir—up towards the hills yonder. Nay! but if ye winna thole to let me bind your wound, how d’ye think to win to their aid, or ever to see bonnie Scotland again?’
George submitted to this reasoning; but, as his senses returned, asked if all the troop had gone.