"If not, mine honest Bill Patten, thou hast still thy sword and the scarlet-and-blue livery of a Boulogner; but, as I was saying, when I am fairly wedded—ha! ha! droll, is it not?—to my sweet Lady Yarrow, as the reward of my service here in Scotland——"
Florence did not wait to hear what the heedless Englishman proposed to do after this happy event; but, dropping the arras, he took his sword, and leaving the chamber, knocked roughly at the door of the two strangers, who started to their weapons before they opened it.
"Sirs," said Florence sternly, "I have discovered you to be two spies of the Protector Somerset."
"Discovered! Then you have been listening?" said Shelly with admirable coolness, though his nut-brown cheek grew pale with anger.
"How I have come to know it, matters not; but the plain fact stands manifest—you are spies!"
"Spies?" reiterated Shelly, trembling with suppressed passion.
"I have said so."
"Be wary, sir—be wary; I wear a sword."
"Edward Shelly, captain of King Henry's Boulogners, need not remind any one that he wears a sword, and can use it too. His name has found an echo even in the chambers of the Tournelles and the Louvre, where I have heard him praised as a true and valiant soldier."
"I thank you, squire—I mean, laird of Fawside—for this compliment; but——"