"Thy master's name! we seek it not," said Roland, as he smote him on the mouth with his gauntleted hand; "we seek it not; for then our honour would compel us to slay him wherever we met him, by holm or hillside, at kirk or in market; and I wish not to stain my father's sword with the blood of villains."
"A priest! then let me have a priest! but five minutes wi' a priest! for, oh, I have mickle to say, and muckle to repent o'!"
"Dog! thou art a Protestant, I believe, and requirest not a priest. No, go down to thy grave with the curse of the God of the living and the God of the dead on thy brow—that dogged front where the mark of hell is written! Drink! drink! dost thou hear me, Cain?"
Roland held the dreadful cup before his eyes by one hand, while, with the other, he gave him a violent prick in the breast with the point of his sword.
Birrel uttered a shriek like a fiend; and, draining the cup to the bottom, flung it full at the face of Roland, who stooped his head, and the wooden vessel was dashed to a thousand shreds on the opposite wall.
"Now I have but two hours to live!" he cried, with the voice of a damned one; "two hours! two hours! two hours!" and, darting through the doorway, he hurled Lintstock from his path as he would a child, and, with one bound sprang down stairs into the courtyard, where he passed through the startled soldiers like a whirlwind, with his visage overspread by the blue pallor of death, his mouth covered with foam, and his matted hair streaming in elf-locks behind him.
Snatching up a cord that lay in his path, he cleared the fosse with one bound, like an evil spirit; and, uttering a succession of frightful cries, plunged down the steep bank, towards the rough rocky bed of the Douglas.
"How now! is the fellow going to hang himself?" said Roland.
"Faith, poisoning might surely satisfy him," replied Leslie.
Master Birrel certainly was about to hang himself, but not by the neck.