“I will,” replied the Wolfe.
“And now, dost thou sincerely acknowledge and repent thee of all the outrages thou hast done to our Holy Mother Church, as well as to God and His ministers?” demanded the Bishop.
“I do,” replied the Wolfe.
“Then do I, God’s servant, proceed to give thee and thine absolution, and to remove from thee the excommunication which was hurled upon thee by the Church in her just vengeance,” said the Bishop, who immediately began to pronounce the form of absolution prescribed by his ritual, as well as that for removing the excommunication.
Miserere was now sung by the choir, after which a mass was chanted, and the impatient Wolfe of Badenoch, tired twenty times over of a ceremony which would have worn out a much more submissive temper, tarried not a moment in the church after it was concluded, but, attended by the Franciscan, forced his way without any delicacy through the crowd, which yielded him a ready passage, and made a hasty exit from the church door. Having gained the open air, he strode along the lane of the guards, with an air that might have led a bystander to fancy that he gloried in his strange attire.
He was about to enter the Castle-gate, when a loud voice, calling “Halt!” came from behind him. He stopped, and turning loftily round, he beheld an armed knight, who came rushing through the abashed and scattered ranks of his men, who were straggling after him. In an instant, the mailed warrior made an effort to grapple the Franciscan by the throat; and he would have succeeded, had not the friar sprung nimbly aside to avoid him.
“Ha!” cried the Wolfe, in a voice like thunder, and at the [[593]]same time snatching a formidable Scottish axe from one of the guards, and planting his unprotected body firmly before the Franciscan; “ha! who art thou that doth thus dare to attack the father confessor of the Wolfe of Badenoch? Dost thou think that I have tyned my spirit in yonder Church? By all the solemn vows I have made, I will split the skull of any he who may dare to lay impious hands on this holy Franciscan.”
“Is this possible?” cried the knight, raising his vizor, and showing himself to be Sir Patrick Hepborne the younger; “can it be that the Earl of Buchan will thus defend the very friar whom mine ears have so often heard him curse as a fiend? But let me pass to him, my Lord; I do beseech thee to provoke me not, for, of a truth, I am mad, utterly mad, at this present.”
“Mad or sober, Sir Patrick Hepborne,” cried the Wolfe, “for now I do perceive that thou art indeed Sir Patrick Hepborne, and much as I do love thee, I swear, by the beard of my grandfather, that neither thine arm, nor that of any created man, shall reach the friar save through this body of mine.”
“Wull she wants her helps? wull she wants her to grip him? wull she cleave the Wolfe’s crown?” said Duncan MacErchar, who now stepped out from the ranks, and spoke into Sir Patrick’s ear. “Troth, she wull soon do that, though she be twenty Wolfes, and a hundert Badenochs.”