"Whence got ye that ring, sirrah?" asked the imperious Clermistonlee, suddenly feeling a new qualm of jealousy.
"Ring, my Lord, ring!" stammered Walter, colouring deeply.
"Yea knave, it flashed even now, and by this light seems a diamond of the purest water. A common pikeman seldom owns a trinket such as that."
"I cry-ye-mercy," said Dalyel; "had your Lordship seen my brigade of Red Cossacks retreating after the sack of Trebizond and Natolia, ye would have seen the humblest spearman with his boots and holsters crammed to the flaps with the richest jewels of Asiatic Turkey. I mysel borrowed a string of pearls from an auld Khanum, worth deil kens how mony thousand roubles. Gad! some pretty trinkets fall in a soldier's way at times."
"Sir Thomas," said Claverhouse, "I would we had a few troops of your Cossacks, to send among the wrest-land whigs for six months or so."
"S'death!" said the General, through his massy beard, "your guardsmen think themselves fine rufflers, and so they are, Clavers'e, but I doubt muckle if in a charge they would have come within o' spear's length of my Red Brigade. Puir chields! lang since hae they stuffed the craps of the wolves and vultures that hovered oure the bluidy plains of Smolensk."
"Well, my Lords, about this ring," observed Clermistonlee, with ill-disguised impatience, while endeavouring to waken His Majesty's advocate, who, oblivious of "His Majesty's interest," had fallen fast asleep. "We all know that the Lady Bruntisfield has a god-daughter, grand-niece, or something of that kind—a fair damsel, however; and 'tis very unlikely this young cock would run his neck under the gallows (whereon I doubt not his father dangled) for nothing. Fenton—harkee, sirrah, surrender the jewel forthwith, and say whence ye had it, or the thumbscrews may prove an awkward exchange for it."
"Do with me as you please, my Lords, but ah! spare me the ring. It is the secret of my life—it is all that I possess in the world—all that I can deem my own:" pausing with sudden emotion the young man covered his eyes. "It was found on the hand of my mother—my poor mother, when she lay dead among the graves of the Grey Friars."
"When, knave?"
"In the year of Bothwell."