“But first, where is she now?” demanded the Franciscan, breaking in.
“Nay, Sir Friar, be not impatient,” cried the Wolfe of Badenoch; “thou wilt gain nothing by impatience. Interrupt him not, I entreat thee; but let him go on in order. Proceed, sirrah.”
“I retreated with the Lady Beatrice, through the Chapel of the Maison Dieu,” replied Sir Andrew Stewart, now assuming greater caution as to what he uttered.
“Well, Sir Knight,” exclaimed the Franciscan keenly, “what hast thou done with her? Speak to that at once.”
“Nay, Sir Friar, why wilt thou thus persist in taking speech?” [[568]]demanded the Wolfe testily; “thou art most unreasonably hasty. By the beard of my grandfather, but impatience and unbridled passion doth ever defeat itself. Dost thou not see that I am cool and unflurried with this knave’s face? Answer me, villain,” roared he to his son, “answer me, thou disgrace to him from whom thou art sprung—thou child of thine infamous mother—answer me, I tell thee, quickly, and to the point, or, by the blood of the Bruce, I shall forget that thou hast any claim to be called my son.”
“Be not angry with me, father,” said Sir Andrew, trembling; “verily the lady is safe, for all that I do know of her; and——”
“Where hast thou bestowed her, villain?” shouted the Wolfe; “speak, or, by all the fiends, thou shalt never speak more.”
“I will, father, if thou wilt but suffer me,” replied the terrified Sir Andrew Stewart.
“Why dost thou not go on then?” cried the Wolfe yet more impatiently; “where hast thou bestowed the lady, villain! An we be not possessed by thee of the whole of thy story, and of the place where thou hast confined her, in less time than the flight of an arrow doth consume, by the blessed house of my ancestors, I shall cause hang thee up, though thou be’st called my son.”
“The lady is not in my hands,” replied Sir Andrew Stewart in terrible alarm; “she fled from me in the garden of the Maison Dieu, and I did never see her more.”