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'My liege," answered Sir John, "I can take warrant upon myself for the innocence of my household and followers."

"

'Why so a monk or a woman might speak," said Sir Patrick Charteris. "In knightly language, wilt thou, Sir John de Ramorny, do battle with me in the behalf of thy followers?"

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The Provost of Perth had not obtained time to name the word combat," said Ramorny, "ere I would have accepted it. But I am not at present fit to hold a lance."

"I am glad of it, under your favour, Sir John-There will be the less bloodshed," said the King. "You must therefore produce your followers according to your steward's household-book, in the great church of St. John, that, in presence of all whom it may concern, they may purge themselves of this accusation. See that every man of them do appear at the time of High Mass, otherwise your honour may be sorely tainted."

"They shall attend to a man," said Sir John Ramorny. Then, bowing low to the King, he directed himself to the young Duke of Rothsay, and making a deep obeisance, spoke so as to be heard by him alone. You have used me generously, my lord !-One word of your lips could have ended this controversy, and you have refused to speak it!"—

"On my life," whispered the Prince, "I spake as far as the extreme verge of truth and conscience would permit. I think thou couldst not expect I should frame lies for thee;-and after all, John, in my broken recollections of that night, I do bethink me of a butcherly-looking mute, with a curtal axe, much like such a one as may have done yonder night-job ?—Ha! have I touched you, Sir Knight?"

Ramorny made no answer, but turned away as precipitately as if some one had pressed suddenly on his

wounded arm, and regained his lodgings with the Earl of Crawford; to whom, though disposed for anything rather than revelry, he was obliged to offer a splendid collation, to acknowledge in some degree his sense of the countenance which the young noble had afforded him.

CHAP. XXI.

In pottingry he wrocht great pyne;

He murdreit mony in medicine.-DUNBAR.

HEN, after an entertainment, the prolonging of which was like torture to the wounded knight, the Earl of Crawford at length took horse, to go to his distant quarters in the Castle of Dupplin, where he resided as a guest, the Knight of Ramorny retired into his sleeping apartment, agonised by pains of body and anxiety of mind. Here he found Henbane Dwining, on whom it was his hard fate to depend for consolation in both respects. The physician, with his affectation of extreme humility, hoped he saw his exalted patient merry and happy.

"

Merry as a mad dog!" said Ramorny, “and happy as the wretch whom the cur hath bitten, and who begins to feel the approach of the ravening madness.-That ruthless boy, Crawford, saw my agony, and spared not a single carouse. I must do him justice, forsooth! If I had done justice to him and to the world, I had thrown him out of window, and cut short a career, which, if he grows up as he has begun, will prove a source of misery to all Scotland, but especially to Tayside.-Take heed as thou undoest the ligatures, chirurgeon; the touch of a fly's wing on that raw glowing stump were like a dagger to me."

"

"Fear not, my noble patron," said the leech, with a chuckling laugh of enjoyment, which he vainly endea

voured to disguise under a tone of affected sensibility. "We will apply some fresh balsam, and-he, he, he !— ́ relieve your knightly honour of the irritation which you sustain so firmly."

'Firmly, man?" said Ramorny, grinning with pain; "I sustain it as I would the scorching flames of purgatory-the bone seems made of red-hot iron-thy greasy ointment will hiss as it drops upon the wound-And yet it is December's ice, compared to the fever-fit of my mind!"

"We will first use our emollients upon the body, my noble patron," said Dwining; "and then, with your knighthood's permission, your servant will try his art on the troubled mind-though I fain hope even the mental pain also may in some degree depend on the irritation of the wound, and that, abated as I trust the corporeal pangs will soon be, perhaps the stormy feelings of the mind may subside of themselves."

"Henbane Dwining," said the patient as he felt the pain of his wound assuaged, "thou art a precious and invaluable leech, but some things are beyond thy power. Thou canst stupify my bodily sense of this raging agony, but thou canst not teach me to bear the scorn of the boy whom I have brought up;-whom I loved, Dwiningfor I did love him-dearly love him! The worst of my ill deeds have been to flatter his vices-and he grudged me a word of his mouth, when a word would have. allayed this cumber ! He smiled too-I saw him smile, when yon paltry provost, the companion and patron of wretched burghers, defied me, whom this heartless prince knew to be unable to bear arms.-Ere I forget or forgive it, thou thyself shalt preach up the pardoning of injuries! And then the care for to-morrow--Think'st thou, Henbane Dwining, that, in very reality, the wounds of the slaughtered corpse will gape, and shed tears of fresh blood at the murderer's approach?"

""

"I cannot tell, my lord, save by report," said Dwining, I which avouches the fact."

"

"The brute Bonthron," said Ramorny, "is startled at the apprehension of such a thing, and speaks of being rather willing to stand the combat. What think'st thou ? -he is a fellow of steel."

"It is the armourer's trade to deal with steel," replied Dwining.

"Were Bonthron to fall, it would little grieve me,' said Ramorny; "though I should miss a useful hand.

"I well believe your lordship will not sorrow as for that you lost in Curfew Street-Excuse my pleasantryhe, he, he!-But what are the useful properties of this fellow Bonthron?"

"Those of a bull-dog," answered the knight; "he worries without barking."

You have no fear of his confessing?" said the physician.

"Who can tell what the dread of approaching death may do?" replied the patient. He has already shown a timorousness entirely alien from his ordinary sullenness of nature; he that would scarce wash his hands after he had slain a man, is now afraid to see a dead body bleed."

"Well," said the leech, "I must do something for him if I can, since it was to further my revenge that he struck yonder downright blow, though by ill-luck it lighted not where it was intended."

"And whose fault was that, timid villain," said Ramorny, save thine own, who marked a rascal deer for a buck of the first head?"

would

"Benedicite, noble sir," replied the mediciner; you have me, who know little save of chamber practice, be as skilful of woodcraft as your noble self, or tell hart from hind, doe from roe, in a glade at midnight? I misdoubted me little when I saw the figure run past us

to the Smith's habitation in the Wynd, habited like a morrice-dancer; and yet my mind partly misgave me whether it was our man, for methought he seemed less of stature. But when he came out again, after so much time as to change his dress, and swaggered onwards with buff-coat and steel-cap, whistling after the armourer's wonted fashion, I do own I was mistaken, super totam materiem, and loosed your knighthood's bull-dog upon him, who did his devoir most duly, though he pulled down the wrong deer. Therefore, unless the accursed Smith kill our poor friend stone-dead on the spot, I am determined, if art may do it, that the ban-dog Bonthron shall not miscarry."

It will put thine art to the test, man of medicine," said Ramorny; "for know that, having the worst of the combat, if our champion be not killed stone-dead in the lists, he will be drawn forth of them by the heels, and without further ceremony knitted up to the gallows, as convicted of the murder; and when he hath swung there like a loose tassel for an hour or so, I think thou wilt hardly take it in hand to cure his broken neck."

"I am of a different opinion, may it please your knighthood," answered Dwining, gently. "I will carry him off from the very foot of the gallows into the land of faery, like King Arthur, or Sir Huon of Bordeaux, or Ugero the Dane; or I will, if I please, suffer him to dangle on the gibbet for a certain number of minutes, or hours, and then whisk him away from the sight of all, with as much ease as the wind wafts away the withered leaf."

"This is idle boasting, Sir Leech," replied Ramorny. "The whole mob of Perth will attend him to the gallows, each more eager than another to see the retainer of a nobleman die for the slaughter of a cuckoldy citizen. There will be a thousand of them round the gibbet's foot."