Clermistonlee trembled beneath her gentle touch; but answered with his usual air of raillery,--
"Hoity, toity, little one! art going to read me curtain lectures already? My dear Lilian, it is too bad really! The abduction? Oh the ardour of my love will be a sufficient excuse for that; and as to being questioned--I don't think any person will permit himself to question me, if he remembers that I am the best hand at pistol, rapier, and dagger, in broad Scotland.
"Beside, dear Lilian, (why dost always shrink? dost think child I am going to eat thee like a rascally ogre) if thou wouldst save thine honour," here his voice sank involuntarily into an impressive whisper, "become mine. Thou shouldst be well aware that after living in the power of one who is so tremendous a roué by habit and repute, no woman could go forth into the world without lying under suspicions of a very unpleasant nature. The roisters at Blair's coffee house have got hold of the story, for it hath made a devil of a noise in the city, and in the mouths of the Bowhead gossips, and Bess Wynd scandal-mongers, our little affair will be quite a romance."
This cruel speech, which was uttered with the utmost coolness and deliberation by Clermistonlee, who played the while with his gold sword-knot, came like ice upon the heart of the unhappy Lilian, who could not but secretly acknowledge that it was too true. She grew pale as death, and, unable to reply, gazed upon her tormentor with a look of such intense aversion, that he could not repress a haughty smile of astonishment.
"For a monster!" murmured Lilian, in a voice almost inarticulate.
"Oh--oh! you regard me as a poor sparrow doth a gerfalcon."
"Alas!" said Lilian, weeping as she sank into a seat, "the simile is but too true."
"You are very unpolite, Madam Lilian; a gerfalcon is between the vulture and the hawk."
Lilian answered only by her tears, and his lordship began to get a little provoked.
"A devil of a breakfast this, my pretty moppet," he continued, with an air of composure; "when these vapours have passed away, peradventure you will condescend to hear my addresses--meantime consider yourself quite at home, and for Heaven's sake (or rather your own), do take a share of such humble cheer as this my poor house of Clermiston affords." And without troubling her farther, he threw back the curls of his peruke, and attacked the devilled duck, the cold sirloin, and wassail-bowl of spiced ale, the smoking coffee and hot bannocks forthwith.