"A thousand furies! draw! Finland, draw!—your life shall pay for this!" exclaimed Clermistonlee, recoiling and laying hand on his sword.
"As you please, Right Honourable; but I hope, most noble Lord, your rascals mean to carry me back to the city—ha, ha!"
"Not unless it be cold and stark upon a bier. Zounds! Sir, I believe you know I am one who will not brook being trifled with."
"Your Lordship must know me for the same," replied Finland, gravely. "I care not a straw what view you may take of this night's adventure, and will now, or at any time, render due satisfaction for it, with my sword, body to body. I am generally to be found either at my quarters in the White Horse Cellar, or in Hugh Blair's Coffeehouse."
"Or the Laird of Maxwelton's—ha!"
"Where your Lordship had better not present yourself; and so, gadzooks! your most obedient. Harkee! Mother Gilruth, undo the barrier; you know me, I think, old one, eh?" and he threw a few coins in her apron, saying, "I can be as free of my flesh and gold as either lord or loon."
Beatrix, whose grey eyes gleamed with malice and avarice, clutched the money with one hand, and shook a poniard at the donor with the other; while Clermistonlee, who was boiling with passion and mortification, again approached him. Douglas started, and half unsheathed his glittering rapier; while Juden, who considered his Lord's affront as one offered to himself, snatched an old partisan from the wall, and prepared to fall on.
"Hold! Juden—back!—not now—not now!" said his master, waving his hand.
"'Tis well, my Lord," said Douglas; "delay so long as you please. We expect to march southward shortly, and I would regret to be left behind with a slashed skin, when Dunbarton's drums were beating the point of war in the face of an enemy. Yes—by all the devils, I would wish rather to fall à la coup de mousquet, than by the rapier of Randal Clermont."
"Your wish may be frustrated if you speak thus insolently," replied Clermistonlee, who admired the cavalier's bearing, though exasperated by the trick he had played him. "But be it so, Finland. Were not this hand fettered by a longing for revenge—a longing which beyond the morrow I cannot control, and which compels me to retain my sword for the heart of another enemy, God wot, I would slay you where you stand. As a swordsman, you are aware I am unmatched in the three Lothians."