“Thou lying caitiff, where hast thou concealed her?” cried the Wolfe.
“I did straightway attempt to lay hands upon her, when she fled before me into the garden, and escaped among the trees and bushes, where I instantly lost all trace of her.”
“But where hast thou been all this time sithence?” demanded the Wolfe fiercely; “answer me straightway to that.”
“My Lord Earl,” replied Sir Andrew Stewart, “as I wandered in the garden I did encounter the old gardener, who, under the light of the burning, did remember me for one of thy sons. He instantly seized me, and having snatched my sword from my side, he did swear potent oaths that he would put me to death if I dared offer to resist; and with these threats he forced me through the garden, and plunged me into a deep vault at its farther extremity, where I was immured without food for two days.”
“Ha! and by the Holy Rood, thou didst well merit it all, I ween, thou most pitiful of cowards,” cried the Wolfe, angrily gnashing his teeth; “what, thou the son of the Wolfe of Badenoch, to be frayed and captured by an old doting unarmed gardener! By all the fiends, but thou dost deserve to wear a [[570]]kirtle and petticoat, and to have a distaff to handle. But what more hast thou to tell, thou shame to knighthood?”
“When I was nearly spent by hunger and thirst,” continued Sir Andrew, “the gardener came, with some of the brethren of the Maison Dieu, to take me from my prison, and I was led before the Bishop of Moray.”
“Ha! and how did the Bishop treat thee?” interrupted the Wolfe.
“He received me with much mildness and gentleness,” replied Sir Andrew Stewart; “and he did severely chide those who so cruelly left me without food, and ere he would allow a question to be put to me, he did straightway order my hunger and thirst to be forthwith satisfied; and, when I had well eaten and drank, he ordered an apartment to be instantly prepared for me, that I might enjoy the repose the which I had so much need; and verily I was right glad to accept of the proffered blessing. The Bishop did keep me with him until a messenger came to him from Lochyndorbe, after which he entertained me rather as his favoured guest than as his prisoner.”
“Nay, so far he speaketh truth” said the Franciscan; “that messenger was mine; he was the messenger of peace.”
“I do indeed speak the truth in everything now,” replied Sir Andrew Stewart, “the which thou mayest soon learn from the Bishop himself, for I am sent before him to announce a peaceful visitation from him, and he will be here anon.”