“Nay, try not anything so rash, father,” exclaimed Sir Andrew Stewart, dreadfully alarmed to find that he was expected to participate in an attempt so desperate; “the whole body of the house is in flames.”
“What, villain,” cried the Wolfe indignantly; “so, thou couldst love the damsel to do her violence, and yet art base enow to shrink from the glorious achievement of saving her life, or perishing in the attempt. Unworthy whelp of the Wolfe of Badenoch! Dastard, dismount and in with me, or, by the blood of the Bruce, the spears of my men-at-arms shall goad thee to it.” And saying so, he sprang from his horse, while Sir Andrew Stewart, though half-dead with fear, was compelled to follow him with all the alertness that might have befitted a hero well stomached for the desperate undertaking.
“What, Andrew going thither!” cried Walter Stewart, leaping from his horse; “by this hand, but I shall in too, then.”
“And so shall I,” cried James, following his brother’s example.
“And by my beard that is to grow,” cried the boy Duncan, “but I shall not be left behind.”
“Nay, stay, Sir Duncan,” cried an esquire. “By the mass, but he is in after the others; and what will my Lord say if anything doth befall him? He loveth the boy more than all the rest put together. I’ll in after him.” Upon which the man rushed in, followed by a crowd of the others, who were equally afraid of the rage that might fall upon their heads for having permitted the boy to escape from them.
And now a terrible scene ensued. The crowd who entered soon wedged themselves in the narrow passages just within the doorway, so that they could neither advance nor retreat. The smoke accumulated about them from the stoppage of its vent. They struggled and crushed, and poured out half-choked curses. Some fell, and were trampled under foot; and at length the voice of the Wolfe was heard from within—
“Ha! clear the passage, or I am suffocated; clear the passage, villains, or I will murder ye all.”
The fear of their violent master did for them what they could not before accomplish. An unusual exertion on the part of those who were outermost extricated them from the doorway, and the passage being now less wedged, the force from within sent them all out headlong into the court, and out rushed [[543]]the Wolfe, nearly spent by the continued suffocation he had endured.
“By all that is miraculous, I do believe that it was a spirit after all,” said the Wolfe, half in soliloquy, as soon as he had gathered breath to speak; “I did make my way to the chamber where she did appear, and she was not there; nor was she anywhere else to be seen. Such tricks of fancy are often played by sprites. And how, after all, could she have been there—she who must be even now in Norham? But, ha!” cried he aloud, “what figure is that I do now behold in yonder hanging towernet that doth blaze so fiercely?”