"Useless?" reiterated Florence with surprise.
"Yes—-useless to thee, at least!" she said, almost fiercely.
"Speak not so unkindly to me, dear mother; I am going elsewhere than to Edinburgh."
"Hah—whither?" she demanded, with some alarm.
"To the regent, on the business of the King of France; and in the wilds of the Torwood, or of Cadzow Forest, I may not find this iron, as you stigmatize the best of Milan plate, perhaps so useless a covering."
For the first time, the mother and son parted with coldness on her side; for the delay he exhibited in challenging Preston to mortal combat, or assaulting and sacking his farms, if not his tower, filled her angry heart with doubt and with disdain; for her long-cherished hope seemed on the eve of being dissipated.
These bitter emotions gave place to anxiety when, about nightfall, she heard news of the enemy. Roger of the Westmains hurriedly entered the hall, and, after paying his devoirs as usual to the ale-barrel, announced that, while driving a few stirks home from Gladsmuir—the fatal land of contention,—he had seen Claude Hamilton depart at the head of an armed train of at least twenty mounted men, by the road direct for Edinburgh.
"And my son is there alone!" was her first thought; for, in his anxiety to depart, and that he might with more freedom prosecute the search after his unknown, he had galloped westward from Fawside, without other friends than his sharp sword and his stout young arm.
"By this time—yea, long ere this," said Roger, looking at the sundial on the window-corner, "he will be far on the way to the Lord Arran's house of Cadzow, and not a horse in the barony could overtake him."
"Pray Heaven he may be so," replied the grim mother, crossing herself thrice; "he will be here to-morrow."