“Who and what am I?” he continued, after a brief pause.  “Wouldst thou know, Alan of Buchan?  Even a faithful knight, soldier, and subject of his Royal Highness Edward, king of England and Scotland, and consequently thy foe; the insulted and dishonored husband of the woman thou callest mother, and consequently thy father, young man.  Ha! have I spoken home?  Thy sword, thy sword; acknowledge thy disloyalty to thy father and king, and for thee all may yet be well.”

“Never!” answered Alan, proudly, the earl’s concluding words rousing the spirit which the knowledge of beholding his father and the emotion of his mother seemed to have crushed.  “Never, Lord of Buchan! for father I cannot call thee.  Thou mayest force me to resign my sword, thou mayest bring me to the block, but acknowledge allegiance to a foreign tyrant, who hath no claims on Scotland or her sons, save those of hate and detestation, that thou canst never do, even if thy sword be pointed at my heart.”

“Boy!” burst from the earl’s lips, in accents of irrepressible rage, but he checked himself; “thou hast learned a goodly lesson of disobedience and daring, of a truth, and I should tender grateful thanks to thy most worthy, most efficient and virtuous teacher,” he added, in his own bitterly sarcastic tone.  “The Lady Isabella deems, perchance, she has done her duty to her husband in placing a crown on the head of his hereditary and hated foe, and leading his son in the same path of rebellion and disloyalty, and giving his service to the murderer of his kinsman.”

“Earl of Buchan, I have done my duty alike to my country and my son,” replied the countess, her high spirit roused by the taunts of her husband.  “According to the dictates of my conscience, mine honor as a Scottish woman, the mother of a Scottish warrior, I have done my duty, and neither imprisonment, nor torture, nor death will bid me retract those principles, or waver in my acknowledgment of Scotland and her king.  Pardon me, my lord; but there is no rebellion in resisting the infringement of a tyrant, no disloyalty in raising the standard against Edward, for there is no treason when there is no lawful authority; and by what right is Edward of England king of Scotland?  Lord of Buchan, I have done my duty.  As my father taught me I have taught my child!”

“Regarding, of course, madam, all which that child’s father would have taught him, particularly that most Christian virtue returning good for evil, as in the fact of revenging the death of a kinsman with the gift of a crown.  Oh! thou hast done well, most intrinsically well.”

“I own no relationship with a traitor,” burst impetuously from Alan.  “Sir John Comyn was honored in his death, for the sword of the Bruce was too worthy a weapon for the black heart of a traitor.  Lord of Buchan, we are in thy power, it is enough.  Hadst thou wished thy son to imbibe thy peculiar principles, to forget his country and her lights, it had been better perchance hadst thou