"Yes, yes, he will be here in the morning," she said suddenly, "for the ship has been seen. Nurse Maud, look out the best dornick napery, and have a fire of turf and coal lighted in his room; hang the crimson curtains on the carved stand-bed, and the green arras on its tenter-hooks. See that the kitchen wenches set a posset of spiced alicant to simmer by the ingle—for the mornings are chill now; let them look well to what is in the spence and almerie against his hame-coming. We must make a feast, Nurse; for after seven years in France our auld Scottish fare will be alike welcome and new to him."
"Seven years," said Maud, thoughtfully.
"Yes, Nurse; seven years come yule-tide hath our beloved bairn been absent from our hearth and hame."
Westmains went away to his grange, or farm, which lay westward of the tower. The strong gates of yetlan iron were now closed for the night, and the lady of Fawside retired, to pray for her absent son, who at that moment was only ten miles distant, but lying on his back, bleeding and gashed by three wounds: but I anticipate my story.
CHAPTER III.
THE DEATH FEUD.
Then pale, pale grew her tearfu' cheek,
"Let ane o' my sons three
Alane guide this emprise, your eild
May ill sic travel dree!
O where were I, were my dear lord,
And a' my sons to bleed;
Better to brook the wrong, than sae
To wreck the high misdeed."
Hardyknute.
Several days passed; and though the ship had certainly come from France, and lay near the Beacon Rock, with all her sails furled, there came no tidings of the widow's son. Horsemen rode east, and horsemen rode west; the burly Roger of Westmains wore himself almost to a shadow, and every steed in the stables was completely knocked up; but no trace of Florence Fawside had been discovered, from the time he left the barge of M. de Villegaignon, at the old wooden pier of Leith. And now, with the reader's permission, we will go back a little in our story.
The Fawsides of that ilk were neither powerful nor wealthy, and their purses bore no proportion to their pride or their pedigree; but they were landed barons of good repute, who took (or gave, which matters not) their name from their own property, bringing thence in time of war or tumult forty armed men to the king's host. Faithful and true in times of treason and invasion, this fine old race had never failed the Scottish crown; but a deadly, bitter, and inextinguishable feud, one of those hereditary and transmitted hatreds peculiar to some Scottish families, existed between them and the Hamiltons of Preston, whose lofty baronial tower stands about three miles distant from Fawside Hill.
William of Fawside served under David I., in his war against Stephen of England, and saved his life at the Battle of Northallerton. For this service he received, that night, a charter written on the head of a kettle-drum, the only piece of parchment which the Chancellor, Bishop Engelram, had at hand, and it is remarkable for a laconic simplicity peculiar alike to the age and country:—