United States or British Virgin Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Then why do you not kill her?" said Malise, whose methods were not subtle. "If she were mine, I would throttle her, and give her body to the hounds." "Hush, I bid you be silent for dear God's sake in whom I believe," again came the voice of the cripple. "You do not know what you say. La Meffraye cannot die.
"Know you not, Malise," he said, "that the Earl of Douglas must needs marry provinces and the Lord of Galloway wed riches? But what is there in that to prevent Will Douglas going courting at eighteen years of his age as a young man ought.
"Ah, Malise," laughed the young Earl, "a Douglas has few privileges if he may not sometimes on a summer eve lay aside his heavy prisonment of armour and don such a suit as this! What think you, eh? Is it not a valiant apparel, as might almost beseem one who rode a-courting?" The mighty master-smith looked at the young man with eyes in which reverence, rebuke, and admiration strove together.
Malise, my man, caa' ye no that an honour, a privileege? Is that no owing to me being the sister on my faither's side o' Ninian Halliburton, merchant and indweller in Dumfries?" "Nay, nay, good dame," laughed the Earl, "'tis all for the sake of your own very sufficient charms!
"Do you know, sister," he said, "I am glad you are to have Bucklaw after all, instead of Ravenswood, who looked like a Spanish grandee come to cute our throats and trample our bodies under foot. And I am glad the broad seas are between us this day, for I shall never forget how frightened I was when I took him for the picture of old Sir Malise walked out of the canvas.
They had moved her bed across to Willy's sitting-room, and a fire crackled on the stone hearth; but it was to be one of the nights when she would not sleep, or but fitfully, and when Celeste and Alexina would not sleep either. At nine o'clock they persuaded her to bed. "But talk, Malise, you and mammy talk.
But Malise answered not a word, only pulled more desperately on the rope, till the sound of his labouring breath and grasping palms could be heard from side to side of the chamber. The Earl leaned further out. "Malise," he said, calm and clear, "you see this knife. I would not have your blood on my hands. You have been a good and faithful servant to our house.
"Oh, William, and there is such news; I forgot, because I have been so overbusied with arranging my new puppet's house that Malise made for me. But scarcely were you gone away on Black Darnaway ere a messenger came from our granduncle James at Avondale that he and my cousins Will and James arrive to-morrow at the Thrieve with a company to attend the wappenshaw."
For old Landless Jock of Abernethy must keep the name while he lives, and stand first when my steward pays out the chuckling golden Lions at Whitsun and eke Lady Day. But you shall have enough and be no longer a charge upon your father. Malise should be a proud man, having both his sons provided for in one day." The Earl turned him about with his usual quick imperiousness.
"I am here," she said, speaking clearly and naturally; "what would ye with the Lady of Douglas?" Thrice Laurence essayed to speak, but his ready tongue availed him not now. He caught at his horse's bridle to steady him and turned weakly to his father. "Do you speak to my lady I cannot!" he gasped. A terrible figure was Malise MacKim, the strong man of Galloway, as he came forward.
Word Of The Day