“I pray your grace excuse me for this night,” answered the countess; “we have made some length of way to-day, and, if it please you, I would seek rest.  Agnes shall supply my place; Mary, thou wilt guard her, wilt thou not?”

“Nay, be mine the grateful task,” said the king, gayly taking the maiden’s hand, and, after a few words of courtesy, he quitted the chamber, followed by his sister.

There were sounds of mirth and revelry that night in the ancient halls of Scone, for King Robert, having taken upon himself the state and consequence of sovereignty, determined on encouraging the high spirits and excited joyousness of his gallant followers by all the amusements of chivalry which his confined and precarious situation permitted, and seldom was it that the dance and minstrelsy did not echo blithely in the royal suite for many hours of the evening, even when the day had brought with it anxiety and fatigue, and even intervals of despondency.  There were many noble dames and some few youthful maidens in King Robert’s court, animated by the same patriotic spirit which led their husbands and brothers to risk fortune and life in the service of their country:  they preferred sharing and alleviating their dangers and anxieties, by thronging round the Bruce’s wife, to the precarious calm and safety of their feudal castles; and light-heartedness and glee shed their bright gleams on these social hours, never clouded by the gloomy shades that darkened the political horizon of the Bruce’s fortunes.  Perchance this night there was a yet brighter radiance cast over the royal halls, there was a spirit of light and glory in every word and action of the youthful enthusiast, Nigel Bruce, that acted as with magic power on all around; known in the court of England but as a moody visionary boy, whose dreams were all too ethereal to guide him in this nether world, whose hand, however fitted to guide a pen, was all too weak to wield a sword; the change, or we should rather say the apparent change, perceived in him occasioned many an eye to gaze in silent wonderment, and, in the superstition of the time, argue well for the fortunes of one brother from the marvellous effect observable in the countenance and mood of the other.

The hopefulness of youth, its rosy visions, its smiling dreams, all sparkled in his blight blue eye, in the glad, free, ringing joyance of his deep rich voice, his cloudless smiles.  And oh, who is there can resist the witchery of life’s young hopes, who does not feel the warm blood run quicker through his veins, and bid his heart throb even as it hath throbbed in former days, and the gray hues of life melt away before the rosy glow of youth, even as the calm cold aspect of waning night is lost in the warmth and loveliness of the infant morn?  And what was the magic acting on the enthusiast himself, that all traces of gloom and pensive thought were banished from his brow, that the full tide of poetry within his soul seemed thrilling