111. Thus the entire charm and meaning of the story of the Monastery depend on the degree of sympathy with which we compare the first and last incidents of the appearance of a character, whom perhaps not one in twenty readers would remember as belonging to the dramatis personæ—Stawarth Bolton.
Childless, he assures safety in the first scene of the opening tale to the widow of Glendinning and her two children—the elder boy challenging him at the moment, "I will war on thee to the death, when I can draw my father's sword." In virtually the last scene, the grown youth, now in command of a small company of spearmen in the Regent Murray's service, is on foot, in the first pause after the battle at Kennaquhair, beside the dead bodies of Julian Avenel and Christie, and the dying Catherine.[101]
Glendinning forgot for a moment his own situation and duties, and was first recalled to them by a trampling of horse, and the cry of St. George for England, which the English soldiers still continued to use. His handful of men, for most of the stragglers had waited for Murray's coming up, remained on horseback, holding their lances upright, having no command either to submit or resist.
"There stands our captain," said one of them, as a strong party of English came up, the vanguard of Foster's troop.
"Your captain! with his sword sheathed, and on foot in the presence of his enemy? a raw soldier, I warrant him," said the English leader. "So! ho! young man, is your dream out, and will you now answer me if you will fight or fly?"
"Neither," answered Halbert Glendinning, with great tranquillity.
"Then throw down thy sword and yield thee," answered the Englishman.
"Not till I can help myself no otherwise," said Halbert, with the same moderation of tone and manner.
"Art thou for thine own hand, friend, or to whom dost thou owe service?" demanded the English captain.
"To the noble Earl of Murray."