“Ha! if thou hadst but listened, Sir Friar,” cried the Wolfe, “if thine impatience had but suffered thee to listen, we had saved much time.”
“Yea, much time mought have indeed been saved,” said the Franciscan; “but, sinner that I am, what hath become of the Lady Beatrice? Her disappearance is most mysterious, if what Sir Andrew Stewart hath told be indeed true.”
“But didst thou not say that the Bishop was coming hither, son Andrew?” cried the Wolfe of Badenoch; “what force doth he bring with him?”
“He bringeth not a single armed man with him,” replied Sir Andrew Stewart; “nay, he hath not above some fifteen or twenty persons in all his company.”
“Had we not better hasten us homewards?” said the Wolfe to the Franciscan; “had we not better hasten to prepare for receiving my Lord Bishop, sith that he doth honour me so far?”
“Thou art right, my Lord,” replied the Franciscan, starting from a reverie into which he had fallen; “it may be that my [[571]]Lord Bishop may peraunter have some tidings to give me of her about whom I am so much interested.”
The Franciscan had little leisure to think more of the Lady Beatrice at that time. They were no sooner within the Castle walls than he found that he had a sufficient task to fulfil in preparing the fierce mind of the Wolfe of Badenoch for receiving the Bishop with that peaceful humility which became a sincere penitent. It was so far a fortunate circumstance that the Wolfe himself was already very greatly touched by the prelate’s generous conduct towards his sons Duncan and Andrew, whom fortune had placed at his mercy.
“By the Rood,” exclaimed he, “but the Bishop hath shown kindness where, in truth, I had but little reason to expect it at his hands. He might have hanged both my boys, taken, as I may say they were, red-handed in a manner. Then his coming thus doth show but little of that haughtiness of the which I did believe him to be possessed. By this hand, we shall muster out our garrison and meet him on the land-sconce with all our warlike parade, that we may do him all the honour that may be.”
“Nay,” replied the monk mildly, “not so, I do entreat thee, my Lord. Let us appear there with all the symbols of peace and humility, and——”
“What,” interrupted the Wolfe hastily, “wouldst thou have me put myself in the power of the prelate?”