"By the right of a kinsman and betrothed lover who would save her from contamination, by becoming the wife of an unknown foundling, a beggarly varlet, a soldier's wallet boy--ha!" and he ground his teeth.
Walter felt stifled as his corslet was compressed beneath the heavy knee of his conqueror, and he made many ineffectual struggles to grasp his poniard, but it lay below him.
"Renounce--renounce! swear--swear!" hissed Napier through his teeth.
"Then die!" shouted Napier; and raised his shortened sword which he grasped by the blade; but endued with new energy at the prospect of instant death, Walter by a vigorous effort of strength, with one hand flung his adversary from him and pinning him to the earth in turn, unsheathed his long dagger, and while labouring under a storm of wrath and fury, drove it twice through the joints of his shining gorget, but unable to withdraw it after the second blow, sank upon his enemy, and they lay weltering together in blood.
"My bitter and my heavy curse be on thee, Walter Fenton!" hissed the dying Napier through his chattering teeth; "and if thou gettest her, may the curse of Heaven, and the curse that fell on Jeroboam be thine! mayest thou die childless, and be the _last_ as thou art the _first_ of thy race!" He fell back and expired.
With burnished brand and musketoon, So gallantly you come; I read you for a bold dragoon, That lists the tuck of drum. ROKEBY.
When Walter Fenton recovered, he found himself on horseback, and his comrades on the march, beyond Crowland, and the setting sun was about to dip below the far-off horizon. A throng of thoughts chased each other through his mind, but sorrow was the prevailing one. The rage he had felt against Napier for his taunts, the hatred for his rivalry, and animosity for his politics had all passed away; he felt now the keenest sorrow for his fate, and remorse that he had fallen by his hand.
The thought did flash upon him, that by the fatal issue of the encounter, Lilian was indisputably heiress of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, but shrinking from contemplation of it, he dismissed it from his mind, as unworthy to be dwelt upon. By him, the warm congratulations of his friends were unheeded and unheard; his whole mind was absorbed in the idea that he had slain the only kinsman of his beloved Lilian, and destroyed the last of a long and gallant race, and already in anticipation he beheld her tears, and heard the sorrowful reproaches of the proud Lady Grisel.