"God mark thee, sweet one; adieu!"—to snatch one other kiss—a kiss never to be forgotten; and with a heart that beat joyously, and a head that seemed to whirl with delight, he quitted the royal garden with all speed, crossed the king's park, and ascended once more to the castle of Stirling.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
CHAMPFLEURIE.
Captain Swagger has ask'd me to wait on you, sir!—
Of course you remember last evening's transaction?—
And you, as a gentleman, cannot demur
At giving the captain the due satisfaction.
We have said that Florence left the countess with a tumult of emotion in his breast. He was full of joy that she loved him,—joy and honest triumph; but to what end was all this love? Circumstanced and separated as they were, by fate, by feud, and fortune, what could its sequel be, or how could a happy result ever be achieved?
At this perplexing thought, the tombs of his father and brother in the church of Tranent—those two quaintly-carved altar-tombs, on each of which lay the rigid effigy of an armed knight, his head upheld by two angels, his stony eyes gazing upward, and his mailed hands clasped in ceaseless prayer, as they lay with shield on arm and sword at side,—seemed to rise like the solemn barriers of death, between him and Madeline Home; for in each of these tombs lay the "blood-boltered" corpse of a near and dear kinsman, slain in feud and mortal fight, by the hand of Claude Hamilton. Florence still viewed the latter as the hereditary foe of his race; and with him, in the blindness of his anger, he identified those attempts by which his life had been so savagely and ruthlessly jeopardized of late.
The recollection of all he had undergone by wounds and indignity, filled him with a bitterness which even his successful love could scarcely soothe; and as he crossed the castle-yard to order his horse, on perceiving the captain of Mary of Lorraine's arquebusiers in conversation with a woman at one of the palace doors, he immediately approached him. The soldier was bravely apparelled in a red satin doublet and mantle, a white velvet hat with a red feather, white boots furnished with long gold spurs, which he clanked together, and apparently very much to his own satisfaction, as he pirouetted about, and laughed gaily with his female friend, while his delicately-gloved right hand played alternately with an amber rosary that dangled at his waist, and with a chain and medal of gold which hung at his neck. He wore a cuirass, which shone like a steel mirror; and had, of course, his sword and dagger.
Here Florence found a legitimate object whereon to vent his irritation; and, as he drew near, the woman, who was no other than Janet Sinclair, the little queen's foster-mother, retired hastily and shut the door, on which Champfleurie, with an air of annoyance which he was at no pains to conceal, turned, with a frown on his handsome but sinister face, and surveyed Florence from head to foot with the cool air of perfect assurance.
"I presume, sir, that you know me?" said the latter, sternly.
"I soon know every man who dares assume such a tone to me," replied the captain gruffly.