“Thou hast said it, youthful lord,” said the knight, impressively.  “Alan of Buchan, bear that bold heart and patriot sword unto the Bruce’s throne, and Comyn’s traitorous name shall be forgotten in the scion of Macduff.  Thy mother’s loyal blood runs reddest in thy veins, young sir; too pure for Comyn’s base alloy.  Know, then, the Bruce’s hand is red with the traitor’s blood, and yet, fearless and firm in the holy justice of his cause, he calls on his nobles and their vassals for their homage and their aid—­he calls on them to awake from their long sleep, and shake off the iron yoke from their necks; to prove that Scotland—­the free, the dauntless, the unconquered soil, which once spurned the Roman power, to which all other kingdoms bowed—­is free, undaunted, and unconquered still.  He calls aloud, aye, even on ye, wife and son of Comyn of Buchan, to snap the link that binds ye to a traitor’s house, and prove—­though darkly, basely flows the blood of Macduff in one descendant’s veins, that the Earl of Fife refuses homage and allegiance to his sovereign—­in ye it rushes free, and bold, and loyal still.”

“And he shall find it so.  Mother, why do ye not speak?  You, from whose lips my heart first learnt to beat for Scotland my lips to pray that one might come to save her from the yoke of tyranny.  You, who taught me to forget all private feud, to merge all feeling, every claim, in the one great hope of Scotland’s freedom.  Now that the time is come, wherefore art thou thus?  Mother, my own noble mother, let me go forth with thy blessing on my path, and ill and woe can come not near me.  Speak to thy son!” The undaunted boy flung himself on his knee before the countess as he spoke.  There was a dark and fearfully troubled expression on her noble features.  She had clasped her hands together, as if to still or hide their unwonted trembling; but when she looked on those bright and glowing features, there came a dark, dread vision of blood, and the axe and cord, and she folded her arms around his neck, and sobbed in all a mother’s irrepressible agony.

“My own, my beautiful, to what have I doomed thee!” she cried.  “To death, to woe! aye, perchance, to that heaviest woe—­a father’s curse! exposing thee to death, to the ills of all who dare to strike for freedom.  Alan, Alan, how can I bid thee forth to death? and yet it is I have taught thee to love it better than the safety of a slave; longed, prayed for this moment—­deemed that for my country I could even give my child—­and now, now—­oh God of mercy, give me strength!”

She bent down her head on his, clasping him to her heart, as thus to still the tempest which had whelmed it.  There is something terrible in that strong emotion which sometimes suddenly and unexpectedly overpowers the calmest and most controlled natures.  It speaks of an agony so measureless, so beyond the relief of sympathy, that it falls like an electric spell on the hearts of all witnesses, sweeping all minor passions