"No, knight, that must not be," replied Douglas. "You are here on safe conduct and protection; my honour is pledged, and must not be forfeited. You shall return in safety to your kinsmen and soldiers, and act by their counsel. It is not prisoners I want, but the castle of Roxburgh, which is the right of my sovereign and my nation,—clandestinely taken, and wrongously held by you. I am neither cruel nor severe beyond the small range that points to that attainment; but that fortress I will have,—else wo be to you, and all who advise withholding it, as well as all their connexions to whom the power of Scotland can extend. If the castle is not delivered up before Friday at noon, your brother shall suffer,—that you already know. But at the same hour on the day of the Conception, if it is still madly and wantonly detained, there shall be such a scene transacted before your eyes as shall blur the annals of the Border for ever."
"If you allude to any injury intended to the lady who is your prisoner," said Musgrave, "the cruellest fiend in hell could not have the heart to hurt such angelic purity and loveliness; and it would degrade the honour of knighthood for ever to suffer it. Cruel as you are, you dare not injure a hair of her head."
"Talk not of cruelty in me," said Douglas: "If the knight who is her lover will not save her, how should I? You have it in your power, and certainly it is you that behove to do it; even granting that the stakes for which we fought were equal, the task of redemption and the blame would rest solely with you. And how wide is the difference between the prizes for which we contend? I for my love, my honour, and the very existence of my house and name; and you for you know not what,—the miserable pride of opposition. Take your measures, my lord. I will not be mocked."
Douglas left the apartment. Musgrave also arose and embraced his brother, and, as he parted from him, he spoke these ominous words: "Farewell, my dear Richard. May the angels that watch over honour be your guardians in the hour of trial. You know not what I have to endure from tormentors without and within. But hence we meet not again in this state of existence. The ties of love must be broken, and the bands of brotherly love burst asunder,—nevertheless I will save you—A long farewell my brother."
Musgrave was then conducted back to the draw-bridge, between two long files of soldiers as before, while all the musicians that belonged either to the army or the city were ranked up in a line behind them, on the top of the great precipice that over-hangs the Teviot, playing, on all manner of instruments, "Turn the Blue Bonnets wha can, wha can," with such a tremendous din that one would have thought every stone in the walls of Roxburgh was singing out the bravado.
CHAPTER VIII.
Qnhat weywerde elfin thynge is thaten boie,
That hyngethe still upon myne gaire, as doeth
My synne of harte? And quhome rychte loth; I lofe
With not les hauckerynge. His locent eyne,
And his tungis maiter comethe on myne sense
Lyke a remembourance; or lyke ane dreime
That had delytis in it. Quhen I wolde say
"Begone;" lo then my tung mistakethe quyte,
Or fanceyinge not the terme, it sayethe "Come hidder,
Come hidder, crabbed boie, unto myne syde."
That evening, after the departure of the noble and distressed Musgrave, Douglas was sitting all alone musing in a secret apartment of the pavilion, when he heard a gentle tap at the door. "Who's there?" inquired he surlily: "It is I, my lor'," said a petulant treble voice without. "Aha! my excellent nondescript little fellow, Colin Roy, is it you? Why, you may come in." Colin entered dressed in a most elegant and whimsical livery, and, forgetting himself, made the Douglas two or three graceful courtesies instead of bows.