"Use thine eyes, Calder! Dost thou see him, Paris?" said the Earl, stooping low to pierce the gloomy shade thrown by the copse-wood upon the river.
"He struggles yonder, my lord!" cried Nicholas Hubert, or French Paris, as he was usually named.
"Nay, thou glaiket mole!" said little Calder; "'tis a tree. Seest thou not that he buffets the water a furlong further down?"
"Right, my little fellow! thou hast the very eyes of a true huntsman!" said the Earl; "'tis a man's head; I see him; he floats like a cork on the strong current. Shout, boys, while I wind my bugle, to let him know that aid is nigh!"
The pages placed their hands to their mouths, and uttered a loud hunting holloa, while Bothwell repeatedly wound his silver bugle. Then a faint cry came from the hissing water, and the drowning man waved an arm with the action of despair.
"He points to the Priory," said Paris; "now, what may that import?"
"By Saint Paul! he is in harness!" exclaimed the Earl; "and the weight of it is sinking him fast. Shall we stand here, like base runnions, and see him perish? Never!"
"Good, my lord—be wary!" urged Calder.
"Sweet, my noble master—have a care!" said Paris; "he may only be some drunken trooper of Lauchope or Clelland's, whom his comrades have lost when fording the river!"
"But to die, and unaided, under my hall windows! No! no! that would be a blight upon my name for ever," cried the Earl as he unbuckled his belt, and throwing down his mantle, bugle, and poniard, leaped without a moment's hesitation into the watery tumult, exclaiming as he did so, "Saint Bothan of Bothwell for me!"