“And I say back!” shouted the Earl of Hereford; “I tell thee, proud earl, he is my prisoner, and mine alone.  Thou mayest vaunt thy loyalty, thy representation of majesty, as thou listeth, mine hath been proved at the good sword’s point, and Edward will deem me no traitor because I protect a captive, who hath surrendered himself a knight to a knight, rescue or no rescue, from this unseemly violence.  I bandy no more words with such as thee; back! the first man that dares lay hold on him I chastise with my sword.”

“Thou shalt repent this!” muttered Berwick, with a suppressed yet terrible oath, but he dared proceed no further.

A signal from their leader brought up all Hereford’s men, who, in compact order and perfect silence, surrounded their prisoner.  Sternly the earl called for a pair of handcuffs, and with his own hands fastened them on his captive.  “It grieves me,” he said, “to see a brave man thus manacled, but thine own mad act hath brought it on thyself.  And now, my Lord of Berwick, an it please thee to proceed, we demand admission to thy citadel in King Edward’s name.  Bring up the other prisoners.”

Concealing his wrath with difficulty, the Earl of Berwick and his attendants dashed forward over the drawbridge into the castle at full speed, closing the gates and lowering the portcullis after them.  After a brief space, the portcullis was again raised, the gates flung wide apart, and the men-at-arms were discerned lining either side, in all due form and homage to the officers of their sovereign.  During the wrathful words passing between the two earls, the attention of the crowd had been given alternately to them and to the Countess of Buchan, who had utterly forgotten her own precarious situation in anxiety for Nigel, and in pity for the unfortunate child, who had been hurled by the soldiers close to the spot where she stood.

“Do not leave him there, he will be trampled on,” she said, imploringly, to the officers beside her.  “He can do no harm, poor child, Scotch though he be.  A little water, only bring me a little water, and he will speedily recover.”

All she desired was done, the boy was tenderly raised and brought within the circle of her guards, and laid on the ground at her feet.  She knelt down beside him, chafed his cold hands within her own, and moistened his lips and brow with water.  After a while his scattered senses returned, he started up in a sitting posture, and gazed in wild inquiry around him, uttering a few inarticulate words, and then saying aloud, “Sir Nigel, my lord, my—­my—­master, where is he? oh! let me go to him; why am I here?”

“Thou shalt go to him, poor boy, as soon as thy strength returns; an they have let thee follow him from Scotland, surely they will not part ye now,” said the countess soothingly, and her voice seemed to rouse the lad into more consciousness.  He gazed long in her face, with an expression which at that time she could not define, but which startled and affected her, and she put her arm round him and kissed his brow.  A convulsive almost agonized sob broke from the boy’s breast, and caused his slight frame to shake as with an ague, then suddenly he knelt before her, and, in accents barely articulate, murmured—­