“Ah, coward,” cried the Wolfe; “so, after all, he was the craven kestrel. By my beard, I thought as much. And so [[565]]thou sayest that thou art yet ignorant where the Lady Beatrice hath been bestowed.”
“Nay, my good Lord,” replied the Franciscan; “but with a knight of his good report she is sure of protection, and——”
“What sayest thou?—good report, sayest thou?” interrupted the Wolfe. “Though he be a brauncher from mine own nest, yet must I, in honesty, tell thee, Sir Friar, that a greater hypocrite presseth not the surface of the earth. Protection, saidst thou? By St. Barnabas, but she hath already hath enow of his protection.”
“What dost thou mean, my Lord?” replied the monk, in astonishment.
“Why, by my knighthood, but I am ashamed to speak so of mine own son,” replied the Wolfe; “yet am I bound to treat thee with candour, and so thou shalt e’en have it.” And he proceeded to give the monk a short history of the infamous treachery of Sir Andrew Stewart towards the Lady Beatrice.
“My Lord of Buchan,” cried the Franciscan, with an agitation and earnestness of manner which the Wolfe of Badenoch could by no means explain, “if I have found favour with thee, lend me thine aid, I entreat thee, to recover the Lady Beatrice from thy son. She is destined to take the veil, and in giving me thine aid to reclaim her thou wilt be doing a pious duty, the which will assuredly tell for the good of thy soul, yea, and help to balance the heavy charge of thine iniquities.”
“Right joyfully shall I give thee mine aid,” replied the Wolfe of Badenoch; “the more that she was the lady of the gallant Sir Patrick Hepborne, with whom she was here, in the disguise of a page. Ha, ha, ha, ha! But wherefore doth she now take the veil?”
“’Tis fitting that she doth atone for a youth of sin by a life of penitence,” replied the Friar, unwilling to speak more plainly.
“So,” said the Wolfe of Badenoch, with a significant look, “after all her modest pretence, and after all Sir Patrick’s cunning dissembling, ’twas as I did suspect then, after all?”
“Thou didst suspect, then?” said the Friar; “alas! I do fear with too much reason. Yet let us not tarry, but hasten to recover her, I pray thee.”