“Not a word.”
“That settles it,” responded the counsellor, getting upon his sturdy legs, “he shall not have my child. I beg your pardon for speaking ill of your fellow countryman, but, to my mind, Bastien has the word ‘rogue’ writ large all over him—and is a—supercilious dog besides! Could you have seen the air with which he asked for the honor of paying his addresses to Miss Mackenzie—very well—very well—I’ll be ready for this Monsieur Bastien when he comes to-morrow to get his answer.”
“My faith! I would not be in Bastien’s shoes,” said De Bourmont, laughing; but becoming grave, he asked, “How does Miss Mackenzie stand toward him?”
“Hanged if I know,” responded Miss Mackenzie’s candid father; “good-morning.” And the counsellor, being a man of his word, Bastien got his congé the very next day.
The ladies and gentlemen in waiting, having little to amuse them during the long days and longer evenings, got hold of Bastien’s unsuccessful suit, and gave him many a sly dig as he walked about, frowning and abstracted, and always thinking about his money. And Lady Betty, being a rash creature, was not behindhand in this sly sort of chaff, so that in a little while Bastien began to hate her a good deal harder than he had ever loved her. And then, he was fully persuaded that he owed his ill luck with Flora Mackenzie to De Bourmont, and privately resolved to get even with him.
Meanwhile, as Bastien grew richer, De Bourmont grew poorer, and suddenly the tradesmen he owed became very pressing in their attentions. Being ignorant of the Scotch law of debtors, De Bourmont listened very attentively when Lady Betty described to their Royal Highnesses in the great salon, one evening, that peculiar institution of Holyrood Palace concerning “abbey lairds.”
“This palace remains still a sanctuary for debtors,” she said, “and any honest debtor, pursued by his creditors, who can reach that place outside the gate called the Strand, is safe from arrest as long as he remains within the demesne of Holyrood; and on Sunday he may walk abroad anywhere he likes, without fear of molestation. My father has told me that in his day it was a common enough thing to claim sanctuary here, and to see a man fleeing toward Holyrood was sure to start a rabble at his heels, all, however, apt to be partisans of the fugitive,—for the people rather like to have the bailiffs outrun. Sanctuary is sometimes claimed now; but, as my father said, the devil is not so strong as he was forty years ago, and debtors are more honest, or creditors more careful whom they trust.”
Their Royal Highnesses listened and laughed, as did the Abbé de Ronceray, with whom Betty, for all her sauciness, was a great favorite; but the most interested among all the hearers was Bastien. He made so many and such minute inquiries about it that Betty asked him very innocently:—
“Why, Monsieur Bastien, are you thinking of claiming sanctuary?”
It was only a few nights after that when De Bourmont, walking down the Cowgate in the moonlight and thinking of his proposed departure to France and of Lady Betty, and wondering how long it would be before he could come back and claim her, presently found two or three men slipping out of the dark “closes” on either side, and apparently following him. De Bourmont quickened his pace, and his mysterious friends quickened theirs. De Bourmont broke into a run—so did his unknown friends.