"Hold, but an instant," said the Lord Crawford, "it may be better than your Grace conjectures. Hear but what this cavalier has to say. – Speak out, man, and a murrain to thee," he added, apart to Le Balafré.
But that blunt soldier, though he could make a shift to express himself intelligibly enough to King Louis, to whose familiarity he was habituated, yet found himself incapable of enunciating his resolution before so splendid and assembly as that in presence of which he then stood; and after having turned his shoulder to the princes, and preluded with a hoarse chuckling laugh, and two or three tremendous contortions of countenance, he was only able to pronounce the words, "Saunders Souplejaw" – and then stuck fast.
"May it please your Majesty, and your Grace," said Crawford, "I must speak for my countryman and old comrade. You shall understand, that he has had it prophesied to him by a Seer in his own land, that the fortune of his house is to be made by marriage; but as he is, like myself, something the worse for the wear, – loves the wine-house better than a lady's summer-parlour, and, in short, having some barrack tastes and likings, which would make greatness in his own person rather an encumbrance to him, he hath acted by my advice, and resigns the pretensions acquired by the fate of slaying William de la Marck, to him by whom the Wild Boar was actually brought to bay, who is his maternal nephew."
"I will vouch for that youth's services and prudence," said King Louis, overjoyed to see that fate had thrown so gallant a prize to one over whom he had some influence. "Without his prudence and vigilance, we had been ruined – It was he who made us aware of the night-sally."
"I then," said Charles, "owe him some reparation for doubting his veracity."
"And I can attest his gallantry as a man-at-arms," said Dunois.
"But," interrupted Crèvecoeur, "though the uncle be a Scottish gentillâtre, that makes not the nephew necessarily so."
"He is of the House of Durward," said Crawford; "descended from that Allan Durward, who was High Steward of Scotland."
"Nay, if it be young Durward," said Crèvecoeur, "I say no more. Fortune has declared herself on his side too plainly, for me to struggle farther with her humoursome ladyship; – but it is strange, from lord to horseboy, how wonderfully these Scots stick by each other."
"Highlanders, shoulder to shoulder!" answered Lord Crawford, laughing at the mortification of the proud Burgundian.