"My Lord, you are the strangest mixture of pride, presumption, and absurdity in all broad Scotland," said Lilian, spiritedly. "I command you to unhand me, and to remember that there is a pit under the house where much hotter spirits than yours have learned to become cool and respectful." He released her. "The pretty moppet is quite in a passion. My dear Lilian, why so cruel? Am I indeed so hateful that you despise me?" "O, no," said she, gently, touched with his tone, for his voice was very persuasive, and his presence was surpassingly noble. "I cannot hate one who has never wronged me; and I dare not despise aught that God has made." "Then you only respect me the same as the cows in yonder park?" "Heaven forbid, my Lord, I should rate you so low!" "Joy! beautiful Lilian. I now perceive that you do love me; and that coy diffidence alone prevents you revealing the sentiments of your heart." And throwing his arms around her, he embraced her, despite all her struggles, and though the girl was strong and active. Thrice she shrieked aloud; and having one hand at liberty, seized Clermistonlee by his perfumed and cherished mustachios, giving him a twist so severe, that he immediately released her, but still interposed between her and the house. His eyes sparkled with ill-concealed rage. "Hoity toity!" he muttered, stroking his mustachios, and surveying her with a gloomy expression. "May the great devil take me if I understand you!" Lilian now began to weep, and murmured-- "I request your lordship to learn----" "That thou lovest another? Damnation, little fool! art still favouring that beardless beggar, whom some Dutchman's bullet will hurl to his father in the bottomless pit?" "Wretch!" exclaimed Lilian, with undisguised contempt. "In heart and soul, Walter Fenton is as much above thee as the heavens are above the earth!" Stung by her words, the eyes of Clermistonlee glared, and his lips grew white: he looked round for some object on which to pour forth the storm of rage and jealousy that blazed within him. He saw the poor dove which nestled in Lilian's breast, and, prompted by wickedness and revenge, suddenly snatched it away, and tossed it into the air; then, quick as thought, he slipped the jess of scarlet leather that bound the fierce hawk to his nether wrist, and like lightning it shot after the terrified pigeon, and soared far in air above it. With fixed eyes and clasped hands Lilian watched it; and so intense was her fear for her favourite, that, in the imminence of its danger, she quite forgot her own. The stern eyes of Clermistonlee were alternately fixed on the soaring birds and on Lilian's pallid face; and he grasped her tender arm with the force of a vice with one hand, while pointing upward to the dove with the other.