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"We hear so many soft words from France that we despise them in the mouths of honest men." The duke then turned to his seneschal, De Vergy, and spoke in tones that were heard all over the room: "My lord, Maximilian, Count of Hapsburg, and Sir Karl de Pitti have consented to join our banners. Enroll them in places of honor, my Lord Seneschal.
So the two young lads, being about to die, kneeled down together before the cross of Him who was betrayed with a kiss. The morning had broken broad and clear from the east when the door of the prison-house was opened, and a seneschal appeared.
The huntsmen ran up; it already lay breathless, and the hounds were tearing the white fur beneath its belly. The huntsmen were patting their dogs, but meanwhile while the Seneschal, drawing the hunting-knife that hung at his girdle, cut off the feet and said:—
Am I, who have been Lord Seneschal of Dauphiny these fifteen years, to end my days in degradation in the cause of a woman's matrimonial projects for a simpering school-girl? Seigneur du Ciel!" he roared, "I think you are gone mad mad, mad! over this affair. You would not think it too much to set the whole province in flames so that you could have your way with this wretched child.
The page, on his part, advanced and put in order the chair of state, which she usually occupied, and having placed the cushion and footstool for her accommodation, stepped back, and stood ready for service in the place usually occupied by his predecessor, the young Seneschal. Mary's eye rested an instant on him, and could not but remark the change of persons.
The graver and sadder ones of the party, father, mother, and the two young sisters, rode farther back, the father issuing directions to the seneschal, who accompanied them thus far, and the mother watching over the two fair young girls, whose hearts were heavy in the probability that they would never meet again, for how should a Scottish Benedictine nun and the wife of a French seigneur ever come together? nor would there be any possibility of correspondence to bridge over the gulf.
So soon as the ascent had been made, the leader wound his horn, and, before the echoes had died away among the hills, Hatto, acting as seneschal, was demanding his purpose. "I am Kasimir von Adlerstein Wildschloss," was the reply. "I have hitherto been hindered by stress of weather from coming to take possession of my inheritance.
On coming to the throne, David endowed these men with charters of lands in Scotland. With him came a cadet of the great Anglo-Breton House of FitzAlan, who obtained the hereditary office of Seneschal or Steward of Scotland. The earliest Stewart holdings of land were mainly in Renfrewshire; those of the Bruces were in Annandale.
In her cheeks there was a guilty flush, but her eyes boldly met and threw back her son's regard. Marius came slowly down the room, and no word was spoken. The Seneschal cleared his throat with noisy nervousness. Madame stood hand on hip, the flush fading slowly, her glance resuming its habitual lazy insolence.
The seneschal thought to disarm the rebellious virtue of his wife by making her scour the country; but his fraud turned out badly, for the unknown lust that circulated in the veins of Blanche emerged from these assaults more hardy than before, inviting jousts and tourneys as the herald the armed knight.
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