"
While Tibb, with the assistance of the other females of the household,
bore the poor mother and Mary Avenel into separate apartments, and
while Edward, still keeping his sword in his hand, hastily traversed
the room, as if to prevent the possibility of Sir Piercie Shafton's
escape, the Sub-Prior insisted upon knowing from the perplexed knight
the particulars which he knew respecting Halbert Glendinning. His
situation became extremely embarrassing, for what he might with safety
have told of the issue of their combat was so revolting to his pride,
that he could not bring himself to enter into the detail; and of
Halbert's actual fate he knew, as the reader is well aware, absolutely
nothing.
The father in the meanwhile pressed him with remonstrances, and prayed
him to observe, he would greatly prejudice himself by declining to
give a full account of the transactions of the day. "You cannot deny,"
he said, "that yesterday you seemed to take the most violent offence
at this unfortunate youth; and that you suppressed your resentment so
suddenly as to impress us all with surprise. Last night you proposed
to him this day's hunting party, and you set out together by break of
day. You parted, you said, at the fountain near the rock, about an
hour or twain after sunrise, and it appears that before you parted you
had been at strife together."
"I said not so," replied the knight. "Here is a coil indeed about the
absence of a rustical bondsman, who, I dare say, hath gone off (if he
be gone) to join the next rascally band of freebooters! Ye ask me, a
knight of the Piercie's lineage, to account for such an insignificant
fugitive, and I answer,--let me know the price of his head, and I will
pay it to your convent treasurer.
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