Beatrix, whose grey eyes gleamed with malice and avarice, clutched the money with one hand, and shook a poniard at the donor with the other; while Clermistonlee, who was boiling with passion and mortification, again approached him. Douglas started, and half unsheathed his glittering rapier; while Juden, who considered his Lord's affront as one offered to himself, snatched an old partisan from the wall, and prepared to fall on. "Hold! Juden--back!--not now--not now!" said his master, waving his hand. "'Tis well, my Lord," said Douglas; "delay so long as you please. We expect to march southward shortly, and I would regret to be left behind with a slashed skin, when Dunbarton's drums were beating the point of war in the face of an enemy. Yes--by all the devils, I would wish rather to fall _à la coup de mousquet_, than by the rapier of Randal Clermont." "Your wish may be frustrated if you speak thus insolently," replied Clermistonlee, who admired the cavalier's bearing, though exasperated by the trick he had played him. "But be it so, Finland. Were not this hand fettered by a longing for revenge--a longing which beyond the morrow I cannot control, and which compels me to retain my sword for the heart of another enemy, God wot, I would slay you where you stand. As a swordsman, you are aware I am unmatched in the three Lothians." "Pshaw!--on the ramparts of Lisle, after three passes, I disarmed Monsieur de Martinet, of the Regiment du Roi; and he was the first swordsman in France and Flanders. I believe we are pretty equal. But, my Lord, he for whom you reserve your skill and fury is my friend--my friend is my second self; and I tell thee, Randal Clermont, Lord and Baron though ye be, that when I think of what might have been the fate of Lilian Napier under this accursed roof, and in the hands of thee and thy hell-doomed harridan, I am sorely tempted to have at thy throat." "'Sdeath! these are words rarely addressed to Clermistonlee. Begone! sirrah, ere from high words we come to hard blows. Away! and remember that the time is not far distant when this night's prank shall be dearly atoned for." "When that hour comes, Finland will never fail," replied the cavalier, throwing his broad beaver jauntily on one side, as with one hand on his rapier, and the other twirling his moustache, he strode away, singing-- "She is all the world to me, And for my blue-eyed Annie Laurie, I would lay me down and die." CHAPTER VII. ADVENTURES OF THE NIGHT CONCLUDED. COUNT. What an unaccountable being! But it won't do. Steinfort, we will take the ladies home, and then you will try once again to see him. You can talk to these oddities better than I can. THE STRANGER.