"Madam," said Howard, with increasing sadness, "I take kind Heaven to witness, that I seek no higher ornament than the admiration you withhold from me; no greater glory than the love I can never win. You have thrice held out bribes to me, as if I wore some sordid Scottish lord or servile English clown, instead of being a gentleman of spotless coat-armour and reputable bearing. I have not deserved contempt thus, even at your hands, for your presence here has wrecked my peace as surely as it has wrecked your own; but alas! from very different causes. Dearly as he loves you, madam--and God who hears him only knows how dearly,--Edmund Howard will never again ask grace of one who has stigmatised him as a king's minion and a sordid wretch. I dare not land you on the Scottish coast; and I have now but one hope--that we shall fall in with old Andrew of Largo, and that after I have died fighting on my deck, you may be given to those whom you love by the lads I leave behind me; though I fear much that bold Dick Selby would rather throw a match in his magazine and blow the old _Harry_ up, than see St. Andrew's cross above St. George's ensign! Farewell, madam--I will never trouble you more."
Repenting her harshness, and impressed by Howard's calm and noble demeanour, Margaret would have called him back; but he sprang upon deck, and summoning John o'Lynne, ordered him to prepare for sailing--to man the windlass and heave short, and to cast loose the courses, while Dick Selby fired a culverin as a signal to their consorts, the _White Rose_ and _Cressi_, to put to sea.
"I will no longer act the traitor to my king," thought Howard, "or be the plaything of this proud beauty, who wrongs me in her heart, and treats my honest passion with the cold indifference of an anchor-stock. Too long have I been the laggard and the lover, and now the play is ended!"
"Ho! for England--cheerily, my hearts!" cried the gunner, as he summoned a squad, who cast loose and loaded a culverin; "I thought we should have ridden in this here cove till our anchors rusted and our cables rotted--or till the hungry devils of the Scottish sea had picked our ribs as clean as ivory. Ready the match! we have cruised long enough in these here northern latitudes to wish for home again!"