Chapter 30 - Page 2

Douglas had by this time re-entered the castle by the wicket, which
was now open. The stranger stood alone in the garden walk, his arms
folded on his breast, and his eyes cast impatiently up to the moon, as
if accusing her of betraying him by the magnificence of her lustre. In
a moment Roland Graeme stood before him--"A goodly night," he said,
"Mistress Catherine, for a young lady to stray forth in disguise, and
to meet with men in an orchard!"

"Hush!" said the stranger page, "hush, thou foolish patch, and tell us
in a word if thou art friend or foe."

"How should I be friend to one who deceives me by fair words, and who
would have Douglas deal with me with his poniard?" replied Roland.

"The fiend receive George of Douglas and thee too, thou born madcap
and sworn marplot!" said the other; "we shall be discovered, and then
death is the word."

"Catherine," said the page, "you have dealt falsely and cruelly with
me, and the moment of explanation is now come--neither it nor you
shall escape me."

"Madman!" said the stranger, "I am neither Kate nor Catherine--the
moon shines bright enough surely to know the hart from the hind."

"That shift shall not serve you, fair mistress," said the page, laying
hold on the lap of the stranger's cloak; "this time, at least, I will
know with whom I deal."

"Unhand me," said she, endeavouring to extricate herself from his
grasp; and in a tone where anger seemed to contend with a desire to
laugh, "use you so little discretion towards a daughter of Seyton?"

But as Roland, encouraged perhaps by her risibility to suppose his
violence was not unpardonably offensive, kept hold on her mantle, she
said, in a sterner tone of unmixed resentment,--"Madman! let me
go!--there is life and death in this moment--I would not willingly
hurt thee, and yet beware!"

As she spoke she made a sudden effort to escape, and, in doing so, a
pistol, which she carried in her hand or about her person, went off.

This warlike sound instantly awakened the well-warded castle. The
warder blew his horn, and began to toll the castle bell, crying out at
the same time, "Fie, treason! treason! cry all! cry all!"

The apparition of Catherine Seyton, which the page had let loose in
the first moment of astonishment, vanished in darkness; but the plash
of oars was heard, and, in a second or two, five or six harquebuses
and a falconet were fired from the battlements of the castle
successively, as if levelled at some object on the water. Confounded
with these incidents, no way for Catherine's protection