6
KING JAMES AND THE ROBBERS,
wiser, and something truer to the king, than any son of your father is likely ever to prove; so set your heart at rest on that matter. And you, giglot, sooth! to your rock and your chisart. But stay; before you go, tell this gallant gay to prowl no longer about my dwelling. By St Bride, an' he does, he may chance to meet a fox's fate.'
'Dear father,' said the weeping girl, 'upbraid us not. Never will I disobey you, never be his, without your own consent.'
'Hold there,' replied Walter, smiling grimly, 'I ask no more.' And he led away the maiden, who dared not so much as steal a parting look.
Arthur Winton bore this fiat of the old man, and the dutiful acquiescence of his daughter, (though he doubtless thought the latter pushed to the very extreme of filial obedience) if not with equanimity, at least with so much of it as enabled him to leave the presence of his mistress and her father with something like composure. He wandered slowly to the beach, which lay at no great distance, as if he had hoped to inhale, with the cool breeze that floated from off the waters, some portion of the calmness in which they then lay bound, his mind occupied in turning over ill-assorted plans for the future, ever broken in upon by some intruding recollection of the past. The place where he now walked was one well calculated, according to the creed of those who believe in the power exercised over the mind by the face of external nature, to instil soothing tranquillizing feelings. It was a smooth grassy lawn, forming the bottom of a gentle eminence, undulating and stretching downwards to the pebbly beach, among whose round white stones the quiet waters of the Forth fell kissingly. The view was bounded to the north by the rising eminences we have mentioned, and shut in on the west by the woody promontary which is still crowned by Wemyss Castle. To the eastward, several rocky eminences stretch into the Forth, the more distant still increasing their seaward march, until the bay is closed by the distant point of Kincraig. Before him lay the silver Forth, and, half-veiled in the distance, the green fields and hills of Lothian, terminated by the picturesque Law of North Berwick, and the great Bass, frowning like some vast leviathan awakening from his sleep. One or two white-sailed barks lay motionless upon the water. The effect of the whole was so stilling and sedative, that Arthur, half forgetting his recent disappointment, stretched himself upon the sward, and abandoned himself to contemplation. While he lay thus chewing the eud of sweet and bitter fancy, the sounds of distant song and merriment
