“Where?—where and when?” cried the anxious Franciscan.
“Nay, be not in such a flurry, brother,” replied she. “I did first see her in the refectory when thou didst bring her there, and a pretty damsel she be, I trow.”
“Nay, but didst thou see her after the fire?” demanded the Franciscan.
“In very deed, nay, brother,” replied the literal sister, Marion.
“Wretch that I am,” cried the Franciscan, in an agony of suspense, “hath then no one seen her escape?”
“St. Katherine help us, an thou dost talk of her escape, [[554]]indeed, thou comest to the right hand in me,” replied she, “sith that it was I myself who did show her how to escape; but that was neither before nor after the fire, I promise thee, but in the very height of the brenning, when the flames were bursting here, and crackling there—and the rafters——”
“Nay, tell me, I entreat thee, sister,” cried the Franciscan, interrupting her, though greatly relieved—“tell me how and where she did save herself?”
“But I do tell thee thou art wrong, brother,” cried the peevish old woman, “for it was in no such ways, seeing, as I said before, it was I myself that did save her. But thou art so flustrificacious; an thou wouldst but let me tell mine own tale——”
“Go on then, I pray thee, sister Marion,” cried the monk, curbing his ire, and patiently resuming his seat upon the stone; “take thine own way.”
“In good troth, my way is the right way,” replied sister Marion. “Well, as I was a-saying, I was sound asleep in my bed, in the back turret at the end of the passage, when cometh the Lady Beatrice to my room, and did shake, shake at me; and up did I start, for luckily for me I had taken an opiate, tincture, or balsam, the which the good cellarer doth give me ofttimes for the shooting toothache pain (but, alas! I doubt it be all burnt now), and so I had somehow lain down in my clothes; and then came the cries of the people, and the smoke and flame—and so I did bethink me straightway of the nun’s private stair to the Chapel, the which did lead down from my very door. This I did enter, and bid the Lady Beatrice follow me. But I being rather lame, and the stair being fit only for one at a time, she did sorely hurry and hasten me; and methought we should never hae gotten down to the Chapel. A-weel, as we were crossing the Chapel to make our way out at the door that doth lead into the garden, who should I see coming down the steps of the main-stair that doth lead from yonder passage on the ground floor into the Chapel, but Sir Andrew Stewart, the son of the Wolfe of Badenoch himself. Trust me, I stayed not long. But if the Lady Beatrice did complain of my delay in the way down thither, I trow she had reason in sooth to think me liard enow in leaving it. I was gone in a trice ere she did miss me; for of a truth I had no fancy to fall into such hands, since who doth know what——”