"Thanks to your Reverence—thanks to your honour," muttered the soldiers, bowing and drinking.
The meal was a very protracted one; but the moment it was over, Dr. Joram muttered a hasty blessing, called loudly for more wine, lighted his great pipe, unbuttoned his vest, and with Finland sat down to a game at tric-trac; the soldiers began to examine their bandoleers and musquets, and Walter repaired to the ample but nearly empty stables, where, from among the indifferent farm horses the necessities of war had left behind, he selected a fine-looking charger, high-headed, close-eared, square-nosed, and broad-chested, and having saddled, bridled, and caparisoned him to his entire satisfaction, led him forth just as the générale was beaten. Mounting, he galloped to the muster-place, well pleased with the acquisition the law of reprisal and the fortune of war entitled him to make.
CHAPTER XX.
THE REDEEMED PLEDGE.
Ha! dost thou know me? that I am Lothario?
As great a name as this proud city boasts of.
Who is this mighty man, then, this Horatio,
That I should basely hide me from his anger?
FAIR PENITENT.
Refreshed by their halt at Ely, the soldiers of Dunbarton pushed on towards "Merry Lincoln," the merriment of whose citizens would probably be no way increased by their arrival. Marching by the most unfrequented route to avoid the highway, they pursued a devious path through fallow fields and frozen lawns, and sought the shelter of every copsewood.
The level plains of fertile England could oppose but few and feeble obstacles to the hill-climbing Scots, accustomed from infancy to the rocky glens and pathless forests of their rugged mountain home; however they found it necessary to abandon the four pieces of English cannon, which were spiked and concealed in a thicket, and thus unencumbered, they hurried on with increased speed.
Walter's heart grew buoyant and gay as the day wore apace, and the picturesque villages with their yellow thatched cottages and ivy-covered churches, the old Elizabethan halls and brick-built manors of Cambridge and Lincolnshire, were passed in rapid succession. He knew that every pace lessened the distance between Lilian and himself, and before the sober winter sun descended in the saffron west, he hailed with pleasure the old town of Crowland, with its great but ruined abbey, the walls of which were buried under masses of luxuriant ivy.
Far over the gently undulated landscape shone the purple and yellow rays of the setting sun; Crowland Abbey, its old fantastic houses and village spire, on the summit of which the vine and ivy flourished, and all the winter scenery were bathed in warm light. The Scots were descending a slope towards the town, when a shot fired by the avant guard, gave them an alert; then the voice of Dunbarton was heard commanding his brave musqueteers to halt, while Gavin of that ilk came galloping back from the front.
"My lord earl," said he, "we have seen the glitter of steel above the uplands yonder."