“Thou wert, thou wert, my child.  Beautiful, beautiful!” he half whispered, as he laid his hand dreamily on those golden curls, and looked on her face; “yet hath sorrow touched thee, maiden.  Thy morn of life hath been o’erclouded; its shadow lingers yet.”

“Too truly speakest thou, father,” replied Nigel, drawing Agnes closer to his heart, for tears were starting in her eyes; “yet will not love soon chase that sorrow?  Thou who canst penetrate the future, seer of the Bruce’s line, tell me, shall she not be mine?”

The old man looked on them both, and then his eyes became fixed on vacancy; long and painfully once or twice he passed his hand across his high, pale brow.

“Vain, vain,” he said, sadly; “but one vision comes to mine aching sight, and there she seems thine own.  She is thine own—­but I know not how that will be.  Ask me no more; the dream is passing.  ’Tis a sad and fearful gift.  Others may triumph in the power, but for me ’tis sad, ’tis very sad.”

“Sad! nay, is it not joy, the anticipating joy,” answered Nigel, with animation, “to look on a beloved one, and mark, amid the clouds of distance, glory, and honor, and love entwining on, his path? to look through shades of present sorrow, and discern the sunbeam afar off—­is there not joy in this?”

“Aye, gentle youth; but now, oh, now is there aught in Scotland to whisper these bright things?  There was rejoicing, find glory, and triumph around the patriot Wallace.  Scotland sprung from her sluggish sleep, and gave back her echo to his inspiring call.  I looked upon the hero’s beaming brow, I met the sparkle of his brilliant eye, I bowed before the native majesty of his god-like form, but there was no joy for me.  Dark masses of clouds closed round the present sunshine; the present fled like a mist before them, and they oped, and then—­there was still Wallace; but oh! how did I see him? the scaffold, the cord, the mocking crowds, the steel-clad guards—­all, all, even as he fell.  My children! my children! was there joy in this?”

There was a thrilling pathos in the old man’s voice that touched the very heart of his listeners.  Agnes clung closer to the arm of her betrothed, and looked up tearfully in his face; his cheek was very pale, and his lip slightly quivered.  There was evidently a desire to speak, to utter some inquiry, but he looked on that sweet face upturned to his, and the unspoken words died in an inarticulate murmur on his lips.

“My brother,” he said, at length, and with some difficulty, though it was evident from the expression of his countenance this was not the question he had meant to ask, “my noble brother, will thy glorious struggles, thy persevering valor, end in this?  No, no, it cannot be.  Prophet and seer, hast thou e’er gazed on him—­him, the hope, the joy, the glory of the line of Bruce?  Hast thou gazed on him, and was there no joy there?”