"Why art thou here?"
"By a combination of circumstances over which I had no immediate control; because I knew not the merits, and saw not the issue, of this border war, in which I had taken service; by destiny—or the guidance of an evil spirit—which you will."
"Holy Paul!" said the page, retreating a pace or two, but immediately advancing again, for he was burning with curiosity to learn the Earl's secret. "If thou talkest thus, I must have thee burned for sorcery!"
"Thou! And who art thou?" asked Konrad, with more surprise than scorn.
"One whose favour may set thee free, but whose anger may leave thee here to rot," replied the pert page, assuming an aspect of dignity. "Dost thou not know that thy life is in my hands, and that, instead of leaving thee the choice food and good wine sent thee by the Captain of Hermitage, I may keep them and leave thee to perish, even as the Knight of Dalhousie perished here two hundred years ago. Ha! dost thou see these relics?" continued the young ruffian, raising his light and revealing a few human bones, and part of a jaw, lying amid the little pool before mentioned, and amid which the monotonous plash of the drop constantly made concentric circles to glitter and expand.
"What terrible history is concealed here!" exclaimed Konrad, with a louring brow.
"A history well known alike in Lothian and Liddesdale," replied the page, drawing nearer him with a horror that he could not repress; "and a foul shame it is to Christian men, that these poor bones have lain here so long unburied. But verily the place hath few tenants."
"Whose are they?" asked Konrad, with deep interest.
"As Heaven hears me, the spirit that once tenanted these poor remains was that of as brave a knight as ever rode to battle!" rejoined the page, with a sudden earnestness; for the aspect of the mouldering bones, lying amid that green and slimy pool, and the gloom of the black dungeon, were not without producing a strong effect on his feelings and fancy. "Listen! It was in the year of our Redemption 1341, when David II. sat upon the Scottish throne. In those days, when the southern Edwards, with all the chivalry of England, the tribes of Wales, the kerne of Ireland, the knights of Normandy, Guienne, and Aquitaine, and all the lanzknechts of Flanders and Alinayne, strove for many a year on many a bloody field to win broad Scotland to their crown, this stronghold of Hermitage belonged to one of the bravest of the Scottish patriots, Sir William Douglas, the Lord of Liddesdale, whose feats of arms had won him the title of Flower of Chivalry. His dearest friend and most loved companion in arms was Sir Alexander Ramsay, Lord of Dalhousie, on the wooded Esk, one of those brave knights whose mailed bosoms had formed in all these wicked wars the best bulwarks of Scottish liberty. In every field, Douglas and Dalhousie were side by side in rivalry and love; at the rescue of Black Agnes, the Lady of Dunbar, and at that brave battle on the Muir of Edinburgh, where the banner of Guy Count of Namur was beaten to the earth, and his Flemish bands destroyed.
"It chanced in these wars, that Ramsay, having won by storm the strong castle of Roxburgh, King David bestowed on him the sheriffdom of that district, an office which, by ancient usage, had ever appertained to the lords of Hermitage and Liddesdale.