"Nay—to wars certainly, but not so far off," he replied, with a deep smile.
"And you came to bid me adieu, my poor old friend! It is so kind of you, Master Halbert; but," she added suspiciously, "how knew you that I should be here at this hour?"
"Surely it was intuition, Lily—some happy, some divine presentiment!" He paused with something like confusion, and she glanced anxiously along the shady forest vista by which she expected Kenneth Logie to approach. Gordon drew off his long leather gauntlet, and took her soft small hand in his.
"He is going far away," she thought, and did not withdraw it.
"Lily," said he, "where I am going, and on what errand, matters not at present, for anon you will know all; but it is a mission of secresy, of danger, and of death—one from which I may never return; and I could not leave these, our native woods and glen, the hawthorn birks, and the bonnie brae of Logie, without saying how long, how well, and how deeply I have loved you—yea, loved you, Lily, from my boyhood upward. I cannot go forth, to die perhaps, with this long-treasured secret in my heart. I could not fall in battle happily, and have it buried with me, unconfessed, untold, and unheard. I know all you would urge," he added, sighing deeply, and speaking hurriedly; "Kenneth, your cousin—yes, yes—all say you love him; but such attachments should not be—they are within degrees forbidden by the church; moreover, I cannot believe it! Oh! think well of the love I have to offer. Kenneth is the penniless orphan of a dowerless bride, and a poor younger son. In this world he possesses nothing; I am a lesser baron, with an estate here and another in Glencairn—my mother's inheritance. I can summon a hundred horsemen in time of need. The Lords of Badenoch, the Earls of Huntly and of Mar, have quartered their shields with mine; and in the storm which is at hand, when a sword may be in every Catholic hand, with its point at every Galvinist throat, you may find a worse protector than Halbert of the Tower; but nowhere in broad Scotland will ye find a better. Ponder, dearest Lily, over all I have said, for I must soon be gone, as time and tide will wait for no man."
Lily trembled excessively; she became pale, and endeavoured to release her hand from Gordon's, but his grasp tightened, and she struggled in vain.
"Think, think!" he continued; "think, Lily, from being the daughter of a bonnet-laird, a mere Gudenian of the Wood, I can make you a lady of that Ilk, and on the nameless bestow one of the best names in all the brave north countrie."
"Halbert Gordon," replied Lily with some asperity, "my father's name is as good as yours; and the wise Regent called him ever his leal man and true in the Douglas' wars."
"James Stuart—pho! a heretic and regicide!"
"He who speaks slightingly of my father's friends involves my father's honour, and cannot love me," replied Lily, endeavouring to free her hand.