“The lady was there, my lord,” replied Ramorny; “I have sure advice that she is gone to meet her father.”
“Ha! to animate the Douglas against me? or perhaps to beg him to spare me, providing I come on my knees to her bed, as pilgrims say the emirs and amirals upon whom a Saracen soldan bestows a daughter in marriage are bound to do? Ramorny, I will act by the Douglas’s own saying, ‘It is better to hear the lark sing than the mouse squeak.’ I will keep both foot and hand from fetters.”
“No place fitter than Falkland,” replied Ramorny. “I have enough of good yeomen to keep the place; and should your Highness wish to leave it, a brief ride reaches the sea in three directions.”
“You speak well. But we shall die of gloom yonder. Neither mirth, music, nor maidens—ha!” said the heedless Prince.
“Pardon me, noble Duke; but, though the Lady Marjory Douglas be departed, like an errant dame in romance, to implore succour of her doughty sire, there is, I may say, a lovelier, I am sure a younger, maiden, either presently at Falkland or who will soon be on the road thither. Your Highness has not forgotten the Fair Maid of Perth?”
“Forget the prettiest wench in Scotland! No—any more than thou hast forgotten the hand that thou hadst in the Curfew Street onslaught on St. Valentine’s Eve.”
“The hand that I had! Your Highness would say, the hand that I lost. As certain as I shall never regain it, Catharine Glover is, or will soon be, at Falkland. I will not flatter your Highness by saying she expects to meet you; in truth, she proposes to place herself under the protection of the Lady Marjory.”
“The little traitress,” said the Prince—“she too to turn against me? She deserves punishment, Ramorny.”
“I trust your Grace will make her penance a gentle one,” replied the knight.
“Faith, I would have been her father confessor long ago, but I have ever found her coy.”