"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."
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.
Rage, mortification, and love (if so his passion can be named), possessed by turns the proud heart of Clermistonlee; but every idea soon became absorbed in one deep and concentrated longing for revenge--revenge upon Douglas of Finland and Walter Fenton, especially the latter, as being the most dangerous and hated--his rival.
He considered and re-considered every charge upon which he could possibly subject their conduct to the scrutiny of the council, and their persons to its torture and dungeons. It was in vain. The high character of Finland on one hand, and the influence of Dunbarton on the other, rendered all such attempts utterly futile; and with a savage exultation, the baffled Lord resolved to trust to his own unerring hand for disabling, maiming, and perhaps slaying the young Ensign: and he resolved, on the first opportunity, to put in practice a species of outrage, which was far from being uncommon in those unsettled times, when our bold forefathers fought to the last gasp, rather than yield one inch of the causeway to a man of a family or a faction whom they held at feud.