Historical fiction, Scottish; Scotland -- In literature
Hereward, not aware at first by whom he was approached, turned on the
intruder with a countenance like a burning coal. Seeing, however, that
it was the Frank, he shrugged his shoulders, as if pitying the
impatience which could not be kept under prudent restraint, and drawing
himself back allowed the Count the privilege of a peeping place through
plinths of the casement, which could not be discerned by the sharpest
eye from the inner side. The sombre character of the light which
penetrated into this abode of pleasure, was suited to that species of
thought to which a Temple of Cytherea was supposed to be dedicated.
Portraits and groups of statuary were also to be seen, in the taste of
those which they had beheld at the Kiosk of the waterfall, yet
something more free in the ideas which they conveyed than were to be
found at their first resting-place. Shortly after, the door of the
pavilion opened, and the Countess entered, followed by her attendant
Agatha. The lady threw herself on a couch as she came in, while her
attendant, who was a young and very handsome woman, kept herself
modestly in the background, so much so as hardly to be distinguished.
"What dost thou think," said the Countess, "of so suspicious a friend
as Agelastes? so gallant an enemy as the Caesar, as he is called?"
"What should I think," returned the damsel, "except that what the old
man calls friendship is hatred, and what the Caesar terms a patriotic
love for his country, which will not permit him to set its enemies at
liberty, is in fact too strong an affection for his fair captive?"
"For such an affection," said the Countess, "he shall have the same
requital as if it were indeed the hostility of which he would give it
the colour.--My true and noble lord; hadst thou an idea of the
calamities to which they have subjected me, how soon wouldst thou break
through every restraint to hasten to my relief!"
"Art thou a man," said Count Robert to his companion; "and canst thou
advise me to remain still and hear this?"
"I am one man," said the Anglo-Saxon; "you, sir, are another; but all
our arithmetic will not make us more than two; and in this place, it is
probable that a whistle from the Caesar, or a scream from Agelastes,
would bring a thousand to match us, if we were as bold as Bevis of
Hampton.--Stand still and keep quiet. I counsel this, less as
respecting my own life, which, by embarking upon a wild-goose chase
with so strange a partner, I have shown I put at little value, than for
thy safety, and that of the lady thy Countess, who shows herself as
virtuous as beautiful."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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