"My dutiful commendations to the good knight your father, and meantime, adieu!"
With eyes full of affection they kissed their hands to each other, and separated.
Whipping up her tall and fiery horse, with her veil and her long tresses floating behind, Marion, by one flying leap, made it clear the roadway and gain the summit of the opposite bank, from whence her lover saw her (followed by her attendants) cantering across the fields towards the sheet of water which her father's old manor-house still overhangs. She went at a pace which put the poor falconers, who were on foot, to their mettle; and the young Laird of Balquhan, despite his anxiety to deliver the important paper, which had thrice nearly cost him his life, checked the speed of his charger to look after the retiring figure of her he loved.
He little knew what that brief pause and that last glance after Marion Logan were to cost him.
Birrel's heart danced with joy to see him loitering, while the young lady and her armed servants were fast retiring beyond ear-shot.
The sun had now set, and the dun blaze of light it shed from the western hills across the muir of Wardie was dying away. The whole Loan, from the round arch of St. Anthony to where it disappeared under the brow of the Calton, was deserted. The Calton then was bare, bleak and desolate, or covered by waving furze, broad-leaved fern, or dark whin; so was the opposite bank, which sloped up to the height of eighty feet, and was crowned by the chapel and little hamlet of St. Ninian, the smoke of which was visible as it ascended into the calm air from the cottage chimneys.
This knoll was named Moultrays Hill; and between it and the Calton the narrow road plunged down into the gorge, where the church of the Trinity lay, passing, on the left, the Carmelite Friary of the Holy Cross at Greenside. Standing forward in strong relief from the dark shoulder of the hill, and against the blue sky, the broad boundary, the stone cross and crow-stepped gables of this edifice, were visible from a group of old elm-trees, under which Birrel posted himself. As Leslie approached, the assassin shrank under their branches, drew his hood over his face, and gave a last glance to the wheel-lock of his dague.
A leer of cruelty and malice shone in his eyes, and a horrible smile curled his square lips, as, with a limping step, he approached the centre of the path.
"Gie a plack or a bodle, sir, to help a puir carle that hasna broken a bannock these three days and mair."
"Try the Carmelites, my good friend," replied Leslie, riding hurriedly on.