"Ah! my jo, Jean—these are severe words," said the Earl, with a faint attempt to laugh; for at times he really felt a sincere tenderness for his little wife.
"Would to God, thou false lord, that I had never met—never married thee!"
"Well, ladybird," said he, with a sudden hauteur that was almost cruel, "thou mayest thank thy kinsman, the politic Earl of Huntly, whose intrigues to procure a rich husband for his tocherless sister brought that bridal about. By our lady! I never sought thee, save in the mere spirit of pastime and gallantry, and in that spirit, Lady Jane, I own that I loved thee well enough for a time."
"A time!" reiterated the Countess.
"Yes—what more wouldest thou have, thou exacting little fairy?"
"A time!" she repeated, and bent her bright but humid eyes upon him, while pressing her white hands tightly together, "Oh, 'twas a pity that love so tender should ever have been spoiled by marriage!"
"Thou growest sarcastic," said the Earl, as he nodded to her jocosely, adjusted his helmet, and began to whistle "My Jollie Lemane"—then after a time, he added, "we were never quite suited for each other, my bonnibel. Thou wert too exacting—I too gay."
The poor young Countess wrung her hands, and uttered that low laugh which thrilled through Bothwell's heart. His countenance changed; he drew back, and regarded her anxiously through his closed visor.
"Thou makest a devil of a fuss about this escapade, Lady Bothwell!" said Hob of Ormiston, in his deep bass voice; he had been intently polishing his cuirass with the lining of his gauntlet, and endeavouring to repress his disdain for the Earl's quietness, this fierce baron being in his own household despotic and terrible as a Tartar king or a Bedouin chief, "Why should not thy husband, the Earl, have a gay lemane as well as the godly Arran, the pious Morton, and other nobles, who hold natheless a fair repute in kirk and state?"
"True," said Hepburn, laughing heartily at this coarse remark, "even Master Knox, too! Is there not a story abroad in the Luckenbooths, of his having been found gamboling with a wight-wapping lass in a covered killogie?"[*]