“And must I then remain whether I will or no?” demanded the page, somewhat appalled at a view of the subject, which would have occurred sooner to a person of more experience.
“At least,” said George Douglas, “you must will to remain till my uncle consents to dismiss you.”
“Frankly,” said the page, “and speaking to you as a gentleman who is incapable of betraying me, I will confess, that if I thought myself a prisoner here, neither walls nor water should confine me long.”
“Frankly,” said Douglas, “I could not much blame you for the attempt; yet, for all that, my father, or uncle, or the earl, or any of my brothers, or in short any of the king's lords into whose hands you fell, would in such a case hang you like a dog, or like a sentinel who deserts his post; and I promise you that you will hardly escape them. But row towards Saint Serf's island—there is a breeze from the west, and we shall have sport, keeping to windward of the isle, where the ripple is strongest. We will speak more of what you have mentioned when we have had an hour's sport.”
Their fishing was successful, though never did two anglers pursue even that silent and unsocial pleasure with less of verbal intercourse.
When their time was expired, Douglas took the oars in his turn, and by his order Roland Graeme steered the boat, directing her course upon the landing-place at the castle. But he also stopped in the midst of his course, and, looking around him, said to Graeme, “There is a thing which I could mention to thee; but it is so deep a secret, that even here, surrounded as we are by sea and sky, without the possibility of a listener, I cannot prevail on myself to speak it out.”
“Better leave it unspoken, sir,” answered Roland Graeme, “if you doubt the honour of him who alone can hear it.”
“I doubt not your honour,” replied George Douglas; “but you are young, imprudent, and changeful.”
“Young,” said Roland, “I am, and it may be imprudent—but who hath informed you that I am changeful?”
“One that knows you, perhaps, better than you know yourself,” replied Douglas.