第26章 CONCERNING THE WRATH OF ELLIOT,AND THE JEOPARDY OF

I dared to say no word,and she only made a motion of her hand towards me,that I should begone,without showing me the light of her countenance.On this I went forth stealthily,my heart again very heavy,for the Maiden had spoken of learning good tidings;and wherefore should my mistress weep,who,an hour agone,had been so merry?Difficult are the ways of women,a language hard to be understood,wherefore "love,"as the Roman says,"is full of anxious fears."Much misdoubting how I fared in Elliot's heart,and devising within myself what this new sorrow of Elliot's might signify,I half forgot my own danger,yet not so much as to fare forth of the doors,or even into the booth,where customers might come,and I be known.

Therefore I passed into a room behind the booth,where my master was wont to instruct me in my painting;and there,since better might not be,I set about grinding and mixing such colours as I knew that he required.

I had not been long about this task,when I heard him enter the booth from without,whence he walked straight into my workroom.Ilooked up from my colours,whereat his face,which was ruddy,grew wan,he staggered back,and,being lame,reeled against the wall.

There he brought up,crossing himself,and making the sign of the cross at me.

"Avaunt!"he said,"in the name of this holy sign,whether thou art a wandering spirit,or a devil in a dead man's semblance.""Master,"I said,"I am neither spirit nor devil.Was it ever yet heard that brownie or bogle mixed colours for a painter?Nay,touch me,and see whether I am not of sinful Scots flesh and blood";and thereon I laughed aloud,knowing what caused his fear,and merry at the sight of it,for he had ever held tales of "diablerie,"and of wraiths and freits and fetches,in high scorn.

He sat him down on a chair and gaped upon me,while I could not contain myself from laughing.

"For God's sake,"said he,"bring me a cup of red wine,for my wits are wandering.Deil's buckie,"he said in the Scots,"will water not drown you?Faith,then,it is to hemp that you were born,as shall shortly be seen."I drew him some wine from a cask that stood in the corner,on draught.He drank it at one venture,and held out the cup for more,the colour coming back into his face.

"Did the archers tell me false,then,when they said that you had fired up at a chance word,and flung yourself and the sentinel into the moat?And where have you been wasting your time,and why went you from the bridge ere I came back,if the archers took another prentice lad for Norman Leslie?""They told you truth,"I said.

"Then,in the name of Antichrist--that I should say so!--how scaped you drowning,and how came you here?"I told him the story,as briefly as might be.

"Ill luck go with yon second-sighted wench that has bewitched Elliot,and you too,for all that I can see.Never did I think to be frayed with a bogle,{14}and,as might have been deemed,the bogle but a prentice loon,when all was done.To my thinking all this fairy work is no more true than that you are a dead man's wraith.But they are all wild about it,at the castle,where I was kept long,doing no trade,and listening to their mad clatter."He took out of his pouch a parcel heedfully wrapped in soft folds of silk.