The laws of the Udaller in his own house were absolute as those of the Medes. The two young men, regarding each other with looks of sullen displeasure, drew off in different directions.
It is seldom that the second day of a prolonged festival equals the first. The spirits, as well as the limbs, are jaded, and unequal to the renewed expenditure of animation and exertion; and the dance at Burgh-Westra was sustained with much less mirth than on the preceding evening. It was yet an hour from midnight, when even the reluctant Magnus Troil, after regretting the degeneracy of the times, and wishing he could transfuse into the modern Hialtlanders some of the vigour which still animated his own frame, found himself compelled to give the signal for general retreat.
Just as this took place, Halcro, leading Mordaunt Mertoun a little aside, said he had a message to him from Captain Cleveland.
“A message!” said Mordaunt, his heart beating somewhat thick as he spoke—“A challenge, I suppose?”
“A challenge!” repeated Halcro; “who ever heard of a challenge in our quiet islands? Do you think that I look like a carrier of challenges, and to you of all men living?—I am none of those fighting fools, as glorious John calls them; and it was not quite a message I had to deliver—only thus far—this Captain Cleveland, I find, hath set his heart upon having these articles you looked at.”
“He shall not have them, I swear to you,” replied Mordaunt Mertoun.
“Nay, but hear me,” said Halcro; “it seems that, by the marks or arms that are upon them, he knows that they were formerly his property. Now, were you to give me the box, as you promised, I fairly tell you, I should give the man back his own.”
“And Brenda might do the like,” thought Mordaunt to himself, and instantly replied aloud, “I have thought better of it, my friend. Captain Cleveland shall have the toys he sets such store by, but it is on one sole condition.”
“Nay, you will spoil all with your conditions,” said Halcro; “for, as glorious John says, conditions are but”——
“Hear me, I say, with patience.—My condition is, that he keeps the toys in exchange for the rifle-gun I accepted from him, which will leave no obligation between us on either side.”