"For me and my lieutenant – that is myself and Peter? – good – but who is my squire?"

"I am, for the present," replied the undaunted Scot.

"You!" said the embarrassed burgess; "but are you not the envoy of King Louis of France?"

"True, but my message is to the magistrates of Liege – and only in Liege will I deliver it. – Were I to acknowledge my quality before William de la Marck, must I not enter into negotiation with him? ay, and, it is like, be detained by him. You must get me secretly out of the Castle in the capacity of your squire."

"Good – my squire; – but you spoke of my daughter – my daughter is, I trust, safe in my house in Liege – where I wish her father was, with all my heart and soul."

"This lady," said Durward, "will call you father while we are in this place."

"And for my whole life afterwards," said the Countess, throwing herself at the citizen's feet, and clasping his knees. – "Never shall the day pass in which I will not honour you, love you, and pray for you as a daughter for a father, if you will but aid me in this fearful strait – O, be not hard-hearted! think your own daughter may kneel to a stranger, to ask him for life and honour – think of this, and give me the protection you would wish her to receive!"

"In troth," said the good citizen, much moved with her pathetic appeal – "I think, Peter, that this pretty maiden hath a touch of our Trudchen's sweet look, – I thought so from the first; and that this brisk youth here, who is so ready with his advice, is somewhat like Trudchen's bachelor – I wager a groat, Peter, that this is a true-love matter, and it is a sin not to further it."

"It were shame and sin both," said Peter, a good-natured Fleming, notwithstanding all his self-conceit; and as he spoke, he wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his jerkin.

"She shall be my daughter, then," said Pavillon, "well wrapped up in her black silk veil; and if there are not enough of true-hearted skinners to protect her, being the daughter of their Syndic, it were pity they should ever tug leather more. – But hark ye, – questions must be answered – How if I am asked what should my daughter make here at such an onslaught?"

"What should half the women in Liege make here when they followed us to the Castle?" said Peter; "they had no other reason, sure, but that it was just the place in the world that they should not have come to. – Our yung frau Trudchen has come a little farther than the rest – that is all."

"Admirably spoken," said Quentin: "only be bold, and take this gentleman's good counsel, noble Meinheer Pavillon, and, at no trouble to yourself, you will do the most worthy action since the days of Charlemagne. – Here, sweet lady, wrap yourself close in this veil," (for many articles of female apparel lay scattered about the apartment,) – "be but confident, and a few minutes will place you in freedom and safety. – Noble sir," he added, addressing Pavillon, "set forward."

"Hold – hold – hold a minute," said Pavillon, "my mind misgives me! – This De la Marck is a fury; a perfect boar in his nature as in his name; what if the young lady be one of those of Croye? – and what if he discover her, and be addicted to wrath?"

"And if I were one of those unfortunate women," said Isabelle, again attempting to throw herself at his feet, "could you for that reject me in this moment of despair? Oh, that I had been indeed your daughter, or the daughter of the poorest burgher!"

"Not so poor – not so poor neither, young lady – we pay as we go," said the citizen.

"Forgive me, noble sir," – again began the unfortunate maiden.

"Not noble, nor sir neither," said the Syndic; "a plain burgher of Liege, that pays bills of exchange in ready guilders. – But that is nothing to the purpose. – Well, say you be a countess, I will protect you nevertheless."

"You are bound to protect her, were she a duchess," said Peter, "having once passed your word."

"Right, Peter, very right," said the Syndic; "it is our old Low Dutch fashion, ein wort, ein man; and now let us to this gear. – We must take leave of this William de la Marck; and yet I know not, my mind misgives me when I think of him; and were it a ceremony which could be waved, I have no stomach to go through it."

"Were you not better, since you have a force together, make for the gate and force the guard?" said Quentin.

But with united voice, Pavillon and his adviser exclaimed against the propriety of such an attack upon their ally's soldiers, with some hints concerning its rashness, which satisfied Quentin that it was not a risk to be hazarded with such associates. They resolved, therefore, to repair boldly to the great hall of the castle, where, as they understood, the Wild Boar of Ardennes held his feast, and demand free egress for the Syndic of Liege and his company, a request too reasonable, as it seemed, to be denied. Still the good Burgomaster groaned when he looked on his companions, and exclaimed to his faithful Peter, – "See what it is to have too bold and too tender a heart! Alas! Perkin, how much have courage and humanity cost me! and how much may I yet have to pay for my virtues, before Heaven makes us free of this damned Castle of Schonwaldt!"

As they crossed the courts, still strewed with the dying and dead, Quentin, while he supported Isabelle through the scene of horrors, whispered to her courage and comfort, and reminded her that her safety depended entirely on her firmness and presence of mind.

"Not on mine – not on mine," she said, "but on yours – on yours only. – O, if I but escape this fearful night, never shall I forget him who saved me! One favour more only, let me implore at your hand, and I conjure you to grant it, by your mother's fame and your father's honour!"

"What is it you can ask that I could refuse?" said Quentin, in a whisper.

"Plunge your dagger in my heart," said she, "rather than leave me captive in the hands of these monsters."

Quentin's only answer was a pressure of the young Countess's hand, which seemed as if, but for terror, it would have returned the caress. And, leaning on her youthful protector, she entered the fearful hall, preceded by Pavillon and his Lieutenant, and followed by a dozen of the Kurschenschaft, or skinner's trade, who attended, as a guard of honour, on the Syndic.

As they approached the hall, the yells of acclamation, and bursts of wild laughter, which proceeded from it, seemed rather to announce the revel of festive demons, rejoicing after some accomplished triumph over the human race, than of mortal beings, who had succeeded in a bold design. An emphatic tone of mind, which despair alone could have inspired, supported the assumed courage of the Countess Isabelle; undaunted spirits, which rose with the extremity, maintained that of Durward; while Pavillon and his lieutenant made a virtue of necessity, and faced their fate like bears bound to a stake, which must necessarily stand the dangers of the course.