“Did not my mother commend me to thy care?  Did she not bid thee tend me as a brother until happier hours, and shall I seek other guardianship than thine, my Nigel?” were her whispered words, and Nigel could not answer them.  So pure, so unselfish was her love, that though he felt his happiness would have departed with her presence, could he have commanded words he would have implored her to seek the hospitality of the Lord of the Isles as a securer home than Kildrummie.  Those forebodings already alluded to had returned with darker weight from the hour his separation from his brother was resolved on.  He evinced no sign of his inward thoughts, he uttered no word of dissent, for the trust reposed in him by his sovereign was indeed as precious as it was honorable; but there was a mournful expression on his beautiful countenance—­when unobserved, it would rest upon his brother—­that Agnes could not define, although it filled her spirit with incomprehensible alarm, and urged her yet more to abide by his side.

The dreaded day arrived at length, and agonized was indeed that parting.  Cheerfully the king looked, and hopefully he spoke, but it had no power to calm the whelming tide of sorrow in which his wife clung to his embrace.  Again and again she returned to that faithful heart which bore so fondly, so forbearingly, with all her faults and weaknesses; and Margory, although she could not comprehend the extent of sorrow experienced by her mother, wept bitterly at her side.  Nor were they the only sufferers.  Some indeed were fortunate enough to have relatives amid the band which accompanied them to Kildrummie, but by far the greater number clung to the necks of brothers, fathers, husbands, whose faithful and loving companions they had been so long—­clung to them and wept, as if a long dim vista of sorrow and separation stretched before them.  Danger, indeed, was around them, and the very fact of their being thus compelled to divide, appeared to heighten the perils, and tacitly acknowledge them as too great to be endured.

With pain and difficulty the iron-souled warriors at length tore themselves from the embrace of those they held most dear.  The knights and their followers had closed round the litters, and commenced their march.  No clarion sent its shrill blast on the mountain echoes, no inspiring drum reverberated through the glens—­all was mournfully still; as the rudest soldier revered the grief he beheld, and shrunk from disturbing it by a sound.

King Robert stood alone, on the spot where Sir Christopher Seaton had borne from him his wife and child.  His eyes still watched their litter; his thoughts still lingered with them alone; full of affection, anxiety, sadness, they were engrossed, but not defined.  He was aroused by the sudden appearance of his younger brother, who, bareheaded, threw himself at his feet, and, in a voice strangely husky, murmured—­

“My sovereign, my brother, bless me, oh, bless me, ere we part!”