He was no sooner gone, than Mortimer Sang, seizing one moment from the bustle of his occupation, strode across to where Katherine was standing, gazing in silent, abstracted, and melancholy guise, towards the pile of baggage heaped up on the ground, which her father’s powerful arms had been rapidly diminishing. With the corner of her eye she marked the squire’s approach; but the fulness of her heart told her that she dared not look up, lest it should run over. Sang stood for some moments absorbed in contemplation of her, his eyes rapidly feeding his passion, and his passion slowly filling his eyes.
“Mrs. Katherine,” said he at length, “ahem! Mrs. Katherine. Of a truth, it is a bitter and ill-favoured thing to be compelled to part with those with whom we have been happy. Verily, ’twas but yestre’en that you and I were right blithe together, and by this e’en there will be many miles atween us—ay, and who can tell, for a matter of that, whether it may ever again please Heaven to bring us together for even one such jolly evening—Heigho!”
Katherine could stand this no longer, but giving way to a burst of grief, hid her eyes in her apron, and being too much agitated to speak, and too much shocked at this her involuntary disclosure of her attachment to the squire, she ran off and disappeared into the Castle.
Sang brushed the mists from his eye-lids with the back of his hand, that his eyes might follow the fair vision as it flew. A Gothic doorway received it. He heaved up a sigh, that rose from the bottom of his heart, and again sunk heavily to the [[337]]abyss whence it was raised, and stood for some moments gazing at the black void that no longer possessed her figure. Again his eyes were dimmed with moisture, again he cleared them, and again he sighed; and casting one look towards his men, who were standing idle in consequence of his absence, and another to the doorway, he seemed to stand fixed between the equal attractions of duty on the one hand and love on the other. A confused and half-smothered laugh roused him from his dream. It proceeded from the troopers and lacqueys of his party, who were all regarding him, and nodding and winking to each other. Stung with an immediate sense of the ludicrous appearance he must have presented his men, the balance of his will was overthrown at once, and he sprang off to rate them for their idleness.
“What ho, my masters, meseems as if ye had lost your main-spring, that ye stand so idle. By the bones of the blessed St. Baldrid, but I will baste your lazy ribs with my lance-shaft, an ye stand staring in that fashion; by all that is good I will make kettle-drums of yere bodies. Ha! I’ll warrant me I shall alter your music, ay, and change these jokes and that laughter of yours into grinnings that shall make your fortunes at e’er a fair in Christendom. Go to, bestir yourselves, knaves.” And following up this with a few well-directed hints of a more substantial description, laid across the shoulders and backs of those whom he conceived to be most deserving of his chastisement, they were all as busy as ants in a moment.
“Master Spears,” said Sang to Rory, as he passed him accidentally, “it erketh me to learn that thou goest not with us.”
“Not ganging with thee!” exclaimed Rory, with an expression of countenance partaking partly of surprise at the question, partly of doubt whether it was put seriously or in joke, and partly of the pleased anticipation of the proud triumph he was about to enjoy when he should have breath to pour forth his answer; “not ganging with thee, Master Sang! By St. Lowry, but I am at a loss to fortake thy meaning. What wouldst thou be at? Dost thou mean to say that I wend not with my Lord the Yearl? If thou dost, by’r lackins, but thou art as sore wide o’ the mark as if thou hadst shot blindfold. I’d have thee to know, Sir Squire,” continued Rory, raising himself up to his full height, sticking his left arm akimbo, and thrusting out his right to its utmost horizontal extent, his hand at the same time resting on the hook of his gaud-clip, the shaft of which was pointed to the earth, “I’d have thee to know, my [[338]]most worthy friend, Master Mortimer, and be it known to thee, with all the due submission and respect the which I do bear thee, that thy master, Sir Patrick, mought no more take the field withouten thee, than my master, the noble Yearl of Moray, would get into his saddle till he saw me at his back. Trust me, though I cannot ride tilting as thou dost, nor loup barriers, nor gallop after runaway Gogs, Magogs, and Goliaths of Gath, in armour, as thou mayest, I can push as good a thrust with a lance, when I take a grup o’t in real yearnest, against a chield that may be ettling to do me the like favour, as I can yerk out this same gaud-clip i’ my hand here, again a rae or ane otter beast. Na, na—the Yearl gang to the wars withouten me! No possible.”
“Nay, as to its being possible, Master Spears,” replied Sang, folding his arms across his breast with a waggish air, “trust me, I can assure thee of the fact, seeing I did hear the Earl say to his esquire that thou wert to tarry at Tarnawa, to wait on a young English damsel, who might lack thy protection for a certain journey she hath in contemplation.”
“Ha!” exclaimed Spears, who had stood in utter dismay as Sang was speaking; “art thou sickerly assured of what thou sayest, Squire Mortimer? My faith, things be come to ane queer pass indeed, sin’ they are gawin to transmew rough Rory Spears into a squire of dames. They will, nae doot, make a tire-woman of him ere it be lang. But, by my troth, I ken mair aboot mewing of hawks than mutching of maidens, and there is no sweet essence, oil, or unguent to me like the guff o’ a wolf, a tod, or a brock. Aweel-aweel, the Yearl’s wull sail be my wull; but this I will say, though it may be I should not, that if ever it gaed contraire to the grain wi’ me to do his bidding, by St. Lowry, now is the very time. But what maun be maun be—that’s a’ I can say till’t.” So shouldering his gaud-clip, he slowly and sullenly retired into the Castle, his utter disappointment and mortification being but ill concealed by his drooping head, and his hair that hung loose about his face from under his morion.
Rory sought his Lord, and, notwithstanding the bustle of business in which the Earl was immersed, he succeeded in obtaining an interview with him, when, to his indescribable horror, he discovered that all that Sang had told him was correct. His grudge at his daughter’s present service now grew into a dislike to her whom she served, who, besides her crime of being an Englishwoman, no light one in his eyes, had also to answer for his present humiliation. The Earl paid him some [[339]]handsome compliments on his fidelity, his good conduct, and his valour, the possession of which qualities had occasioned his selection as the person to be left at Tarnawa, to be in readiness for the honourable and delicate piece of duty which might be perchance required of him. But even these high commendations from the quarter most valued by him were insufficient to make amends for the mortification he felt at his disappointment, nor could they season the proposed duty so as to make it palatable to him.