The seals and the signatures of the few who could accomplish the (then) difficult task of affixing their degraded autographs to this rebellious bond were soon completed, and Master Shelly was consigning it to a secret pocket of his dagger-proof doublet, when Master Patten whispered waggishly,
"In sooth, sir, methinks a fair dame should have been also provided for me in this parchment."
"In good faith, Patten," said Shelly, laughing, "I love a lass at home in England—a fair jolly dame, who lives near Richmond; I have other two, who are as good as wives to me, at Calais and Boulogne; to wed a fourth, in Scotland here, were but to act King Harry over again, save that I don't shorten them by the head."
At that moment Symon Brodie, the butler, entered hastily, and whispered in the ear of his master, who exclaimed, while his nut-brown cheek grew pale,
"Fawside of that ilk has come home, say ye?"
"This morning our herdsmen on the Braehead saw him ride into the tower just as Tranent bell rang for the first mass."
"The devil!—Sayst thou so?" cried Kilmaurs, starting up. "Hath that fellow come alive again?"
"It wad seem sae, my lord," replied Symon, rubbing his half-healed sword-wound.
"Then we must have his French letters, even should we sack his house."
"Nay, sirs," said old Claude of Preston, "no such work as that shall be hatched here. I have had enough of the auld feud, and of Dame Alison, too—enough, and to spare. Not content with setting her husband and madcap eldest son upon me to their own skaith, she pays that auld gowk, Mass John of Tranent, to curse me daily, and consorts with witches and warlocks nightly for my destruction. Oh, 'tis a pestilent hag, this Dame Alison of Fawside!"