In presence of this beautiful girl the young man seemed to be alike without words or thoughts that had any coherence.
So absorbing was the emotion, that he was quite unconscious of the insolent and defiant glances levelled at him by Glencairn, by his son Kilmaurs, and others, as they brushed past and left the hall, to scheme further plots for vengeance or for safety; for these lords and their followers were only restrained by a knowledge of the locality, of its sanctity, and of the high powers of the Lord High Constable, from assaulting and slaying him, sword in hand, within the precincts of this royal castle and palace; for princely Stirling, in Scotland's earlier days, was both.
Within an hour after the convention broke up two horsemen were seen passing eastward, through the Torwood, at full speed, to lessen as much as possible the eighty Scottish miles or so that lay between them and the frontiers of England.
They were the valiant captain of the Boulogners and Master Patten, the emissaries of the Duke of Somerset, on the high-road for Berwick and London, to announce that England had no argument left her now but a sharp and dangerous one—the sword!
The loyal and true foresaw the evils to come with sincere sorrow; and, under their silvery beards, old men muttered that ancient prophecy so fatally and so frequently applicable to Scotland:—
Woe unto the land whose king is a child!
CHAPTER XXVII.
MADELINE HOME.
'Tis but thy name, that is my enemy;—
Thou art thyself though, not a Montague.
What's Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part
Belonging to a man.
Romeo and Juliet.
Left almost alone in the king's hall, Florence retired from it with a heart that was alternately a prey to the emotions of sadness and mortification, bitterness and anger.