PART II
I
So the Young Lovell sat listening to the old Elizabeth in the sun that grew hottish amongst the flowering bushes. He thought to himself nigh all the time, and still every second thought was of that lady.
His thoughts went like this—
There could be no doubt that the law would not help him to retake his Castle; but he longed for her red, crooked, smiling lips. He must therefore get together a band and besiege that place; and at the thought of climbing through a breach in great towers whilst the cannon spoke and the fascines fell into the ditches, arrows clittered on harness, greek fire rustled down, and the great banners drooped over the tumult, his blood leapt for a moment. But her hair he remembered in its filaments and it blotted out the blue sea that lay below his feet and was more golden than the gold of the broom flowers and the gorse that surrounded him. He thought that, first, he must have the sanction of the Bishop Palatine and his absolution from any magic he might in innocence have witnessed; but, in longing for her queer smile, he could scarcely keep from springing to his feet. He knew he must be moving over the hills, but the remembrance of her crossed breasts with her girdle kept him languishing there in the hot sun as if his limbs had lost their young strength.
So, when the old woman had finished her story, she sat looking at him with a queer glance. He spoke no word until she could not but say—
"Master, where did ye bide? Was it with the bonny witch-wives?"
He contemplated her face expressionlessly.
"Tell me truly, old woman," he said, "where will ye say that I did bide, to save my name?" for he knew that this old woman could tell a very good tale.
"I will say Gib Elliott took ye up into Chevyside and held ye there in an old tower, till a scrivener of Embro' could be found to take your bond for a thousand marks. And ye shall send fifty crowns to Gib by me—he was my mother's sister's foster son—and he shall say that so it was."