"Hold, hold," cried the
page, "and let me in ere you lock the wicket." The voice of Dryfesdale
replied from within, in his usual tone of embittered sullenness, "The
hour is passed, fair master--you like not the inside of these
walls--even make it a complete holiday, and spend the night as well as
the day out of bounds."
"Open the door," exclaimed the indignant page, "or by Saint Giles I
will make thy gold chain smoke for it!"
"Make no alarm here," retorted the impenetrable Dryfesdale, "but keep
thy sinful oaths and silly threats for those that regard them--I do
mine office, and carry the keys to the seneschal.--Adieu, my young
master! the cool night air will advantage your hot blood."
The steward was right in what he said; for the cooling breeze was very
necessary to appease the feverish fit of anger which Roland
experienced, nor did the remedy succeed for some time. At length,
after some hasty turns made through the garden, exhausting his passion
in vain vows of vengeance, Roland Graeme began to be sensible that his
situation ought rather to be held as matter of laughter than of
serious resentment. To one bred a sportsman, a night spent in the open
air had in it little of hardship, and the poor malice of the steward
seemed more worthy of his contempt than his anger. "I would to God,"
he said, "that the grim old man may always have contented himself with
such sportive revenge. He often looks as he were capable of doing us a
darker turn.
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