"Personally none," said Florence, with hesitation.
"And yet you hate him?"
"Yea, with an impulse that fiends alone might comprehend!" was the impetuous reply.
"Wherefore?"
"Ask my suffering mother, who reared me from infancy in this deadly hate! Ask my dead father, and ask my dead brother, who sleep together in the old aisle of Tranent Kirk, and they might tell you why! They died—those two brave and faithful ones—by Preston's bloody hands, bequeathing to me, as the chief part of mine inheritance, hatred—and well have I treasured it! This sword was my father's; this dagger was poor Willie's; and in Preston's blood I am bound by a hundred vows to dye them both!"
"He is old," said the other gravely; "I tell thee, old."
"Then Scotland can the better spare him," was the stern response.
"Enough of this," said the stranger haughtily. "I am a Hamilton; and here in Cadzow Wood, in the heart of the country of the Hamiltons, bethink you that your words are alike unwary and unwise. Here is your letter for Millheugh; and now let us proceed. I have quarrels enough of my own, without adding yours to my care."
The elderly stranger restored the sealed note to Florence, and on mounting was about to speak again, when his horse, which was still restive and unruly after the late occurrence and report of the pistol-shot, on being touched by the spur reared wildly back, and snorted as it cowered twice upon its haunches and tossed up its head; then throwing forward its fore feet, it sprang away like an arrow from a bow, and vanished with its rider in the darkened vista of the forest. Fawside's first impulse was to hallo aloud, and, for a time, to search after his new acquaintance; but this proved unavailing, for the echo of each far-stretching dingle alone replied.
"This stranger spoke truth," thought he. "I have been both unwary and unwise in disclosing my name and my feud to one I knew not—to one who proves to be a Hamilton,—and here in Cadzow Wood, too! So-ho for Millheugh; fortunately yonder are the tower lights still glinting through the foliage."