er mistress; and,
hastening as fast as his old limbs would enable him, mounted Marjory's
grey jennet, and was soon out in the midst of the storm. The only
remaining servant left in the tower, besides the warder, was, at the
same time, despatched, by his half-frantic mistress, to proceed on the
road to Peebles, and reconnoitre the king's company, and convey to her
what intelligence he could learn in regard to its movements. By this
time it was now about three o'clock; but the morning was still dark, the
storm had not abated, the rain still poured, the lightning flashed, and
the neighbouring streams rolled over their rugged channels with a noise
that equalled the thunder which yet shook the heavens. Marjory again
took her seat on the casement; and her fancy, stimulated by her fears,
became again busy in the conjuration of images which, however fearful,
unhappily stood too great a chance of being realized. The substratum of
indisputable facts was itself a good foundation of fear:--The king,
angry, and breathing revenge against his rebellious subjects of the
Border, was at hand--even within a few miles of her husband's residence;
and the ensign of his authority and punishment was borne by the common
executioner; then he would detect her husband in the very commission of
that rebellious act against which the royal vengeance was to be
directed; and, above all, she feared--nay, she was certain, from her
knowledge of Henderland's free, bold spirit, that he would disdain to
fly, and would at once commit himself into the hands of a young incensed
monarch, who had travelled forty miles for his blood. These were
fearful, incontrovertible facts, and they were contemplated by a
solitary female in the dark hour of night, in the midst of one of the
fiercest storms that had ever visited that part of the country, and
under the blue lights of a fancy that, in spite of the appeals of
judgment, reverted to an old prophecy of a wonderful being, which seemed
to have been respected even by the lightning of heaven: the elm still
stood; its brethren of the forest had fallen; and the rope to be
attached to it was on its way to Henderland. Fearful forebodings took
possession of her mind; and, as her fears rose higher and higher, she
looked out in the dark, while the gleams of lightning played round her
couch, and every sound that differed from the roaring of the storm
arrested her ear, and kept her on the rack of painful anxiety. Her
little childre