"
"You admit, then, that you have slain my brother?" said Edward,
interfering once more; "I will presently show you at what price we
Scots rate the lives of our friends."
"Peace, Edward, peace--I entreat--I command thee," said the Sub-Prior.
"And you, Sir Knight, think better of us than to suppose you may spend
Scottish blood, and reckon for it as for wine spilt in a drunken
revel. This youth was no bondsman--thou well knowest, that in thine
own land thou hadst not dared to lift thy sword against the meanest
subject of England, but her laws would have called thee to answer for
the deed. Do not hope it will be otherwise here, for you will but
deceive yourself."
"You drive me beyond my patience," said the Euphuist, "even as the
over-driven ox is urged into madness!--What can I tell you of a young
fellow whom I have not seen since the second hour after sunrise?"
"But can you explain in what circumstances you parted with him?" said
the monk.
"What _are_ the circumstances, in the devil's name, which you
desire should be explained?--for although I protest against this
constraint as alike unworthy and inhospitable, yet would I willingly
end this fray, provided that by words it may be ended," said the
knight.
"If these end it not," said Edward, "blows shall, and that full
speedily."
"Peace, impatient boy!" said the Sub-Prior; "and do you, Sir Piercie
Shafton, acquaint me why the ground is bloody by the verge of the
fountain in Corri-nan-shian, where, as you say yourself, you parted
from Halbert Glendinning?"
Resolute not to avow his defeat if possibly he could avoid it, the
knight answered in a haughty tone, that he supposed it was no unusual
thing to find the turf bloody where hunters had slain a deer.
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