"Kilmaurs, is not this fellow killed yet?" asked the Master of Lyle, who was one of the new-comers. "Devil bite me! is this French trafficker to keep twelve swordsmen in play and kill them all at his leisure!"
"Upon him now, his guard is down!" exclaimed the ferocious Kilmaurs, exasperated by the taunt of his compatriot, as he rushed forward to despatch the poor lad, whose head and hands were drooping as he reclined against the wall of a dark shadowy house, and felt that life and energy were alike passing away from him; when suddenly a tall man mingled his voice in the combat, and being armed with one of those poleaxes which all citizens were bound to possess for the purpose of "redding frays" within the burgh, he beat them back, shouting the while,
"Armour! armour! fie—to the rescue—fie!"
"What villain art thou?" demanded Glencairn imperiously, grasping his right arm.
"Fie! gar ding your whingers into him!" cried the others. "What matters it who he is?"
"Speak, rash fellow, lest I kill thee!" said the lofty noble. "I am the Lord Glencairn!"
"And I am Dick Hackerston, a burgess and free craftsman—a hammerman of Edinburgh. Fie!—have at ye a'! Is this fair play or foul, my lords and masters?" he exclaimed, as he swept them aside by describing a circle vigorously with his poleaxe.
At that moment blindness came upon the eyes of Florence, and a faintness overspread his limbs. The stone wall against which he reclined seemed to yield and give way; he felt the atmosphere change: a red light seemed to shine before his half-closed eyelids; and voices, gentle, softly modulated, and full of tender commiseration, floated in his ears.
He sank down—down he knew not, recked not where. ........ He heard a door closed violently ......... A stupor like death came over him, and he remembered no more! ........