"I know for whom thou art looking," said he, grasping her by the arm; "for yonder brainless fop, who thinks of nothing but his ruff and his plume and the glory of being master of the king's ordnance--a wretched worm, whom the heat of our Scottish wars hath nourished into a gilded butterfly, and who dares to cock his bonnet in our faces with the bearing of a landed baron." "Gramercy!" said Jane, waggishly; "I knew not that a butterfly wore a bonnet." "Hah!" he muttered, fiercely, "the lover who is once laughed at _is lost_!" The grasp of his strong hand compressed her slender arm like a vice; there was an oath trembling on his lips, and fury flashing in his eye, for love and hatred, as they struggled in his heart, made him both selfish and savage. "Oh Mother of Mercy!" murmured Jane; "away ruffian! or I will shriek that thou art a vampire!" At that moment the shadow of a tall figure, armed with a prodigious sword, was thrown by the moon along the velvet sward; and Redhall was prostrated by a blow on the ear, dealt by a ponderous and unsparing hand. Jane turned with terror, and saw her brother, the earl, spring back and disappear under the cloister arches of the abbey; while, at the same moment, Roland Vipont leaped down stairs from the hall, taking four steps at once. "A thousand pardons, dearest Jane, and a thousand more," he exclaimed, drawing her arm through his, and leading her away; "but this tiresome argument concerning old Mollance Meg and the Devil of Bois le Duc (plague take them both!) occupied more time than I had the least idea of; and my lord the bishop of Limoges hath lost on the matter a hundred silver livres, which the king means to give the Franciscans to-morrow. But thou art not angry with me?" "Angry? oh, no! I know thou art sufficiently punished, minutes being ages when absent from me." "Ah, thou art right, for my sojourn in Paris was a very eternity." "Then let us join the dancers, and be merry while we may," said she, with a gaiety which was scarcely assumed, for she was but too happy to hurry him into the hall, without observing the lord advocate, who, stunned by the effects of the blow, lay for a second or two unseen, and somewhat ignominiously, upon a parterre of rose-bushes, from whence he arose with fury in his heart, and his sword in his hand, but to find himself alone--a fortunate circumstance, as he would infallibly have slain the first man near him. He adjusted his ruff and doublet, brushed a speck or two from his trunk breeches, and shaking his clenched hand, said hoarsely, under his moustaches-- "Either Roland Vipont or the Earl of Ashkirk dishonoured me by that blow. Be it so--I have them all in my grasp! Revenge is a joy for gods and demons, and, by the Holy Rood, I will be avenged, and fearfully, too!"