t turned over the brae side, and can be coming nowhere
but here.'

'A guest!' cried both Malcolm and the elder knight, 'of what kind, Lily?'

'A knight--a knight in bright steel, and with three attendants,' said
Lilias; 'one of Patrick's French comrades, say I, by the grace of his
riding.'

'Not a message from the Regent, I trust,' sighed Malcolm. 'Patie, oh do
not lower the drawbridge, till we hear whether it be friend or foe.'

'Nay, Malcolm, 'tis well none save friends heard that,' said Patrick.
'When shall we make a brave man of you?'

'Nevertheless, Patie,' said the old gentleman, 'though I had rather the
caution had come from the eldest rather than the youngest head among us,
parley as much as may serve with honour and courtesy ere opening the gate
to the stranger. Hark, there is his bugle.'

A certain look of nervous terror passed over young Malcolm's face, while
his sister watched full of animation and curiosity, as one to whom
excitement of any kind could hardly come amiss, exclaiming, as she looked
from the window, 'Fear not, most prudent Malcolm; Father Ninian is with
him: Father Ninian must have invited him.'

'Strange,' muttered Patrick, 'that Father Ninian should be picking up and
bringing home stray wandering land-loupers;' and with an anxious glance
at Lilias, he went forward unwillingly to perform those duties of
hospitality which had become necessary, since the presence of the castle
chaplain was a voucher for the guest. The drawbridge had already been
lowered, and the new-comer was crossing it upon a powerful black steed,
guided by Father Ninian upon his rough mountain pony, on which he had
shortly before left the castle, to attend at a Church festival held at
Coldingham.

The chaplain was a wise, prudent, and much-respected man; nevertheless,
young Sir Patrick Drummond felt little esteem for his prudence in
displaying one at least of the treasures of the castle to the knight on
the black horse. The stranger was a very tall man, of robust and
stalwart make, apparently aged about seven or eight and twenty years,
clad in steel armour, enamelled so as to have a burnished blue
appearance; but the vizor of the helmet was raised, and the face beneath
it was a manly open face, thoroughly Scottish in its forms, but very
handsome, and with short dark auburn hair, and eyes of the same peculiar
tint, glancing with a light that once seen could never be forgotten; and
the bearing was such, that Patric