Captain Swagger has ask'd me to wait on you, sir!—
Of course you remember last evening's transaction?—
And you, as a gentleman, cannot demur
At giving the captain the due satisfaction.
We have said that Florence left the countess with a tumult of emotion in his breast. He was full of joy that she loved him,—joy and honest triumph; but to what end was all this love? Circumstanced and separated as they were, by fate, by feud, and fortune, what could its sequel be, or how could a happy result ever be achieved?
At this perplexing thought, the tombs of his father and brother in the church of Tranent—those two quaintly-carved altar-tombs, on each of which lay the rigid effigy of an armed knight, his head upheld by two angels, his stony eyes gazing upward, and his mailed hands clasped in ceaseless prayer, as they lay with shield on arm and sword at side,—seemed to rise like the solemn barriers of death, between him and Madeline Home; for in each of these tombs lay the "blood-boltered" corpse of a near and dear kinsman, slain in feud and mortal fight, by the hand of Claude Hamilton. Florence still viewed the latter as the hereditary foe of his race; and with him, in the blindness of his anger, he identified those attempts by which his life had been so savagely and ruthlessly jeopardized of late.
The recollection of all he had undergone by wounds and indignity, filled him with a bitterness which even his successful love could scarcely soothe; and as he crossed the castle-yard to order his horse, on perceiving the captain of Mary of Lorraine's arquebusiers in conversation with a woman at one of the palace doors, he immediately approached him. The soldier was bravely apparelled in a red satin doublet and mantle, a white velvet hat with a red feather, white boots furnished with long gold spurs, which he clanked together, and apparently very much to his own satisfaction, as he pirouetted about, and laughed gaily with his female friend, while his delicately-gloved right hand played alternately with an amber rosary that dangled at his waist, and with a chain and medal of gold which hung at his neck. He wore a cuirass, which shone like a steel mirror; and had, of course, his sword and dagger.
Here Florence found a legitimate object whereon to vent his irritation; and, as he drew near, the woman, who was no other than Janet Sinclair, the little queen's foster-mother, retired hastily and shut the door, on which Champfleurie, with an air of annoyance which he was at no pains to conceal, turned, with a frown on his handsome but sinister face, and surveyed Florence from head to foot with the cool air of perfect assurance.
"I presume, sir, that you know me?" said the latter, sternly.
"I soon know every man who dares assume such a tone to me," replied the captain gruffly.
"Dares!"
"I have said so, sir," replied the soldier, shaking his plume.
"Ha! ha! You either mock yourself or me."
"Uds daggers, sirrah! What make you here?"
"That you shall soon learn. You remember giving me, in the streets of Edinburgh, a letter for the laird of Millheugh!"
"I have some faint recollection of doing so," replied Champfleurie, with an impertinent yawn.
"That letter was a deadly snare,—a lure for my destruction; and you knew it to be so."
"You—John Livingstone of Champfleurie!"
"How, laird of Fawside—how?"
"By the tenor of the letter, and by the message with which you accompanied it, you proved yourself to be——"
"What? Be wary, sir,—what?"
"A false liar!"
Livingstone grew pale with rage. He drew back a pace, and pressing the hilt of his sword against his heart for a moment, relinquished it with a gasp of anger. On this, his fiery opponent, who was his junior by ten years, smiled scornfully, and said,—
"You know the sensation of a sword-blade entering your flesh?"
"Cogsbones! I should think so!" replied the captain, with a smile equally proud and scornful. "I have, in my time, had a dozen of good swords in me; seven in duels, two at Ancrumford, and three at the rout of Solway."
"Then what is it like?"
"Do you wish practical proof, damned jackfeather?"
"What is it like?" reiterated Florence furiously.
"Hot iron."
"Then you shall enjoy that warm sensation again!"
"Indeed!" sneered Champfleurie.
"Yes!" replied Florence, unsheathing his sword with a fury no longer restrainable; for during this strange conversation he had gradually been drawing the captain towards the Nether Baillery, a secluded part of the fortress. "Defend yourself, villain, lest I kill you where you stand!"
"Stay!—stay!" exclaimed the other, defending himself only by his left arm, round which he quickly rolled his velvet mantle.
"Why stay? Would you confess? If so, the queen's chaplain——"
"Bah! Confession went out with the cardinal last year. But hold your wrath, sir, and put up your sword; remember where we are, and that our lands are forfeited to the Lord High Constable if we draw weapons within the precincts of a royal castle or palace, and must I remind you that the queen's fortress of Stirling is both. Moreover, my Lord of Errol, the constable, once caught me kissing his lady's hand; and husbands have troublesome memories sometimes."
"Sir, I thank you for the lesson; in my just anger I forgot where we were. But we need have no lack of a trysting-place."
"No sir, if you are thus stout and resolute," replied the captain, coming close, with a sombre frown on his face; for being as perfectly master of his temper as of his sword, he was the deadlier and more dangerous enemy. "At sunset I will meet you beside the Roman Rock, below the castle wall."
"Good! Till then——"
"Adieu."
And with a stern salute they both separated.
"Plague take thee for a ruffling bully," thought Champfleurie. "But, by the blessed pig of St. Anthony, I shall kill thee like a cur, or I am no true Livingstone!"
People thought little of risking life, and less of fighting, in those days. But as Florence remembered the young love he had just left, her sweetness, her beauty, and passionate nature; and then his stern mother, who loved and prized him as an only son, the prop of her years, the last of his line and the hope of its vengeance, the idea that he might for ever take up his abode in the burial-place of Stirling, filled him with a temporary sadness and gloom. Fortunately, however, but brief time was left him for sombre reflection, as he had barely parted from Champfleurie when the young baron of Dalserfe approached, cap in hand, to say that the regent desired to speak with him immediately.
Florence remembered the warning of Champfleurie, and believing they had been watched, his first idea suggested a rebuke, if not captivity, for drawing sword in a royal castle, as Arran was endeavouring, but in vain, to repress the lawless and tumultory spirit of the time. However, on being ushered into his presence, his smile and welcome at once relieved the young man from all apprehension on that score.