Our law, our canon, compels you to make your way home with her, for nowhere else can your wedding be duly solemnised.
Suppose the enemy block your way: you are given a good horse, a trusty sword and a brace of pistols, and then, with thirteen loyal comrades, including myself, you clear a path, through blood if need be, to the altar whither it is your duty to lead your betrothed." While the two men thus discoursed on war and bloodshed, Blanka was enjoying the late autumn flowers that the frost had spared.

Indigo-blue bell-flowers and red and white tormentils were still in bloom, while in the clefts of the rocks she came upon the red wall-pepper and a kind of yellow ragwort.

She had gathered a great bunch of these blossoms when she had the good fortune to find a clump of bear-berry vines, full of the ripened fruit hanging in red clusters and set off by the leathery, dark green leaves, which never fall.

The bear-berry is the pride of the mountain flora, and Blanka was delighted to meet with it.
"Are these berries poisonous ?" she asked Aaron, with childish curiosity, as soon as she rejoined her companions.
He put one of them into his mouth to reassure her; then she had to follow his example, but immediately made a wry face and declared the fruit to be very bitter.
"But the berries will do to put in my bouquets for your two brothers who are coming to meet us," she said, as she seated herself on the sheepskin to rest a few minutes and to tie up her flowers.
At these words Aaron's eyes filled, but he hastened to reply, with assumed cheerfulness: "In Balyika Glen we shall find a still more beautiful species of bear-berry.

It, too, is a kind of arbutus, but of great rarity, and found nowhere else except in Italy and Ireland.