"Recal that bitter word, boy?" said Hamilton, hoarsely.
"Coward, coward!" continued Florence, menacing his throat with the point of his sword.
Preston struck it contemptuously aside with his bare hand, and gasped for breath. He then made an attempt to draw his sword; but relinquishing the hilt, by a violent effort mastered his emotion.
"Boy," said he, "my pride and my spirit are passing away from me. There was a time when, by a glance, I had almost slain thee for an insult such as this—but that day is gone, yea, gone for ever! A coward, I?" he continued, with a wild, choking laugh, while the tears started to his reddened eyes; "rash fool! thy brave father, whose spirit may now witness this meeting, would never so have taunted me; but I am old enough to bear even this from thee. Go, I say, in peace; for on this right Land of mine there is already more than enough of the blood of your family."
In five minutes after this, Florence had left the tower of Millheugh, and found himself riding through the green glades of Cadzow Forest, the upper foliage of which was glittering in the noonday sun.
Mentally he rehearsed his late meeting with Preston, and now his own heart—as his better passions resumed their wonted sway—began to accuse him of acting harshly, and without grace or generosity. Despite himself, his cheek began to redden with a glow of honest shame, for the taunts he had hurled upon a gentleman whose years were so many, and whose high valour had been so often and so undoubtedly proved in battle; but these thoughts were immediately stifled, as the tall form, and grave, resentful face of his stern mother seemed to rise before him, and gave rise to other ideas; then, lest he might be followed by the men of Bothwell or Glencairn, he spurred his fleet grey to a gallop, and pushed on rapidly for the residence of the regent.
CHAPTER XXIII.
CADZOW CASTLE.
When princely Hamilton's abode
Ennobled Cadzow's Gothic towers,
The song went round, the goblet flow'd,
And wassail sped the jocund hours.
Scott.
The Avon, a tributary of the Clyde, flows through a beautiful valley, the sides of which are clothed with magnificent timber of great size and age. Embosomed amid the thickest part of this forest, surrounded by trees which were planted during the reign of David I., and overhanging a rushing torrent, the rocks of which are covered by masses of dark ivy and luxuriant creeping-plants, stands the castle of Cadzow, now an open ruin, having been dismantled in the wars of Queen Mary's time, but which, at the epoch of our story, had banners on its ramparts and cannon at its gate, being in all the strength and pride of a feudal stronghold as the residence of a princely and powerful chief, James Earl of Arran, who, by his position as regent, was the first subject in the realm.