somewhat thus runs the catch. But the man that made that kenned nothing of love. For I would make all the honor of men no more than a straw-wisp to feed the flames to warm the feet of my love withal. To 'die for her' is a pretty saying, and forever in the mouth of every prating fool whenever he comes anigh a woman; but I would smile under the torture of the boot and abide silently the Extreme Question only to preserve her heart from a single pang."
"Would you give her up to another if you knew that it was for her good?"
"A thousand times no!" Wat was beginning, furiously, when his companion put her hand over his mouth.
"If ye dinna hunker doon beside me, and learn to be still, ye will e'en see her ye think so muckle o' the bride o' my Lord o' Barra, and that, too, on the morn of a day when ye will be learning to dance a new quick-step oot o' the tower window up on the heuch there."
"I know," said Wat, speaking more low, and answering as if to himself her former question, "that it is within the power of the love of woman, when it is purest and noblest, to be able to give up that which they love to another, if they judge that it is for the beloved's good. But they that think such surrender to be the essence of the highest love of men ken nothing at all about the matter. For me, I would a thousand times rather clasp my love in my arms and leap with her over the crags of Lianacraig, than see her given to any other. And I would sooner set the knife into her sweet throat with mine own hand than that Barra should so much as lay a finger upon her."
"And your friend?" said Bess Landsborough. She was smiling in the dark as if she were well pleased.
"Jack Scarlett I love," replied Wat, "but not for him did I break prison, overpass the hollow seas, and lay my life like a very little thing in the palm of a maiden's hand."
"It is well," said Bess Landsborough, with a sigh. "That is the true lilt of the only love that is worth the having. The heart beats just so when there comes into it the love that contents a woman—the love that is given to but few to find in this weariful, unfriendly, self-seeking warld."
She rose to her feet and looked eastward.
"In an hour and a half at the outside ye maun be on your road, lad, back to your hidie-hole. I ask ye not where that may be. But gin Alister McAlister sleeps soundly ye shall speak with your friend—while I, Bess Landsborough, a decent married woman frae the pairish o' Colmonel, keep watch and ward at the chaumer door ower the pair o' ye."