The earl laughed, throwing himself upon his hard bed.
“Put out the taper, Denis,” he said, “we’ll hope for the best. If I can’t live for my lady, at least I can die for her—with a light heart,” and he turned his face to the wall with a laugh.
Denis wiped his eyes on his sleeve and wagged his head again and again, his mind on the morrow.
CHAPTER XIII
LADY BETTY TAKES THE FIELD
THE sun had not yet risen: earth and sky were softly gray and brown, with green where the meadows lay, and purple in the shadows. Morning, like a white flower with a heart of gold, opened in the east. Shafts of light—the sun’s gold-tipped arrows—quivered on the distant hills, while the vapors, smokelike and fantastic, floated along the level lands and the trees loomed spectre-like.
It was chilly, too, with the chill of dawn in the early autumn, and Lord Clancarty and young Mackie were muffled in their cloaks as they walked across the fields together. The Irishman was smiling, in his usual daring fashion, but the younger man was sober and even nervous as he listened to him.
“I have to thank you, Sir Edward,” Clancarty said, “for standing by a stranger, but I should look for no less at your hands.”