They saluted each other, the bright blades clashed, and they both engaged with great address and skill. Clad in blue velvet and gold, Kincavil was both strong and handsome; but as a swordsman considerably inferior to Roland, who had studied his thrusts at the court of Francis I.; and thus, three passes had scarcely been exchanged on the right, when he made a sudden _appel_ on the left, and quickly disengaging to the right again, passed his sword completely through the body of his adversary, who bent forward over it, and sank upon his knees. He made a futile effort to rise, but the moment Roland's blade was withdrawn, sank prostrate on the grass, with the blood gushing from his wound. "Ask me not to beg my life, Sir Roland," said Hamilton in a broken voice, "for I will rather die than condescend so far." "Thou art a gallant man, Sir John Hamilton; and may the devil take me if I make any such request; but methinks I have taught you the danger of jesting with the names of noble ladies." "My Heaven! yes. I am bleeding fast; and yet, if the Lady Ashkirk doth really make that precious salve," said Kincavil, with true Scottish obstinacy, "tell her, for God's love to send me a pot thereof, for I am enduring the torments of hell!" and he reclined against a stone, pale and motionless, with his beautiful doublet of blue velvet drenched in blood. Roland carefully wiped and sheathed his favourite Italian sword with the air of a man who was used to such encounters; and after vainly endeavouring to staunch the crimson torrent, he hastened to the Watergate, from whence he sent the under-warders to look after the wounded man, and then walked up the street towards the house of the countess, as if nothing had happened. A thrust or so through the body was a mere nothing in those days. CHAPTER XII. EDINBURGH IN 1537 "Installed on hills, her head near starry bowers, Edina shines amid protecting powers; Religious temples guard her on the east. And Mar's strong towers defend her on the west; For sceptres nowhere stands a town more fit, Nor where a queen of all the world might sit; Be this thy praise, above all be most brave, No man did e'er defame thee but _a slave_." ARTHUR JOHNSTONE, 1680.