“I have just come from seeing him to horse, Sir Knight,” said the woman, trembling.
“Well, Jessy, thou mayest go; I would speak with thy mistress in private,” said Sir Walter, seeing her out, and shutting the chamber door; and then, turning to the Lady Stradawn, and shaking her arm till he had awakened her. “Madam,” said he, “what unseemly sight is this?”
“Sis—sis—sis—sight, Sir Priest?” replied the lady, with her eyes goggling; “sis—sight! What mean ye, Sir Priest? he! he! he!”
“Holy Saint Andrew grant me temper!” said Sir Walter. “Madam, Sir Allan waits for thee to give him his evening meal: he is impatient. Sir Allan, I say!”
“Tut! hang Sir Allan,” cried the lady, still unconscious as to whom she was addressing, and taking him by the arm; “hang Sir Allan, as thou thyself saidst but now, thou most merry conditioned mettlesome, Sir Priest. He! he! he! Hang the old stobber-chops, and let’s be jolly while we can. Come; sit down—sit down, I say. You need not go yet. Did I not tell thee that Jessy keeps the door?”
“I am not the priest, vile woman!” cried Sir Walter, with indignation, whilst, at the same time, he shook her off with a force and rudeness that seemed almost to bring her back to her senses. “Did’st thou not now, alas! alas! to our shame, most unworthily fill that place once occupied by my sainted mother, and that thine exposure would prove but the greater dishonour to our house, by the holy Rood, I would call up every thing that hath life within these walls, down to the very cat, that all eyes might behold thy disgrace, and then should’st thou be trundled forth, and rolled into the river, that the fishes might gorge themselves on thine obscene carcase!”
Bursting from the apartment, Walter hastily sought the hall; and the evening meal having been by this time spread, he called to the retainers to be seated, and hastened to busy himself in attending to his father, in supplying him with the food prepared for him, and with such little matters as he knew the old man most liked—feeding him from time to time like a child.
“Aye, aye, that’s good,” said old Sir Walter. “Thanks, thanks, my boy; you are a good boy. But where is Bella? where is the Lady Stradawn? Och hey, that’s good,—but she is often away now; seldom it is, I am sure, that I see her. Aye, aye, Walter, boy, that is good—that is very good.”
When his father was satisfied, Walter seated himself at the board, and ate and drank largely, from very vexation and ire, and in order to keep down the storm of rage which was secretly working within him. This, as well as the cause of it, he privately determined to conceal, even from his brother Patrick, with whom he had been, upon all other occasions, accustomed to share his inmost thoughts. For the rest of the night he sat gloomy and abstracted, and at an earlier hour than usual he hurried off to his chamber. There, having summoned his attendant, Dugald Roy, he questioned him more particularly as to all he knew regarding the visits of the Priest of Dalestie to Drummin, and having then dismissed him, with strict injunctions to maintain a prudent silence, he threw himself into bed, to pass a restless and perturbed night.
The next morning saw the Lady Stradawn glide into the hall, to preside over the morning meal, gaily dressed, and covered as usual with chains, brooches, and rings of massive worth, which she procured no one knew how. Her countenance beamed with her wonted smiles, as if nothing wrong had happened, or could have happened on her part. Walter and Patrick saluted her with that cold yet civil deference, which they had always been in the habit of using towards her, as the wife of their father, and in which Walter took care that neither his brother, nor any one else, should perceive any shadow of change upon the present occasion. The manner of her salutation was as blythe, kind, free, and unconcerned as it ever was before.