Previous  - next

"And see, James," said Mr. Henry, "if I go, and the Prince has the
upper hand, it will be easy to make your peace with King James.
But if you go, and the expedition fails, we divide the right and
the title. And what shall I be then?"

"You will be Lord Durrisdeer," said the Master. "I put all I have
upon the table."

"I play at no such game," cries Mr. Henry. "I shall be left in
such a situation as no man of sense and honour could endure. I
shall be neither fish nor flesh!" he cried. And a little after he
had another expression, plainer perhaps than he intended. "It is
your duty to be here with my father," said he. "You know well
enough you are the favourite."

"Ay?" said the Master. "And there spoke Envy! Would you trip up
my heels - Jacob?" said he, and dwelled upon the name maliciously.

Mr. Henry went and walked at the low end of the hall without reply;
for he had an excellent gift of silence. Presently he came back.

"I am the cadet and I SHOULD go," said he. "And my lord here in
the master, and he says I SHALL go. What say ye to that, my
brother?"

"I say this, Harry," returned the Master, "that when very obstinate
folk are met, there are only two ways out: Blows - and I think
none of us could care to go so far; or the arbitrament of chance -
and here is a guinea piece. Will you stand by the toss of the
coin?"

"I will stand and fall by it," said Mr. Henry. "Heads, I go;
shield, I stay."

The coin was spun, and it fell shield. "So there is a lesson for
Jacob," says the Master.

"We shall live to repent of this," says Mr. Henry, and flung out of
the hall.

As for Miss Alison, she caught up that piece of gold which had just
sent her lover to the wars, and flung it clean through the family
shield in the great painted window.

"If you loved me as well as I love you, you would have stayed,"
cried she.

"'I could not love you, dear, so well, loved I not honour more,'"
sang the Master.

"Oh!" she cried, "you have no heart - I hope you may be killed!"
and she ran from the room, and in tears, to her own chamber.

It seems the Master turned to my lord with his most comical manner,
and says he, "This looks like a devil of a wife."

"I think you are a devil of a son to me," cried his father, "you
that have always been the favourite, to my shame be it spoken.
Never a good hour have I gotten of you, since you were born; no,
never one good hour," and repeated it again the third time.
Whether it was the Master's levity, or his insubordination, or Mr.
Henry's word about the favourite son, that had so much disturbed my
lord, I do not know; but I incline to think it was the last, for I
have it by all accounts that Mr. Henry was more made up to from
that hour.

Altogether it was in pretty ill blood with his family that the
Master rode to the North; which was the more sorrowful for others
to remember when it seemed too late. By fear and favour he had
scraped together near upon a dozen men, principally tenants' sons;

Previous  - next