d, sister,' replied Malcolm; 'Philomel, that pierces her
breast with a thorn, and sings sweetly even to her death.'

'That's mere minstrel leasing, Malcolm,' said Patrick. 'I have both seen
and heard the bird in France--_Rossignol_, as we call it there; and were
I a lady, I should deem it small compliment to be likened to a little
russet-backed, homely fowl such as that.'

'While I,' replied the prisoner, 'feel so much with your fair sister,
that nightingales are a sort of angels that sing by night, that it pains
me, when I think of winning my freedom, to remember that I shall never
again hear their songs answering one another through the forest of
Windsor.'

Patrick shrugged his shoulders, but Lilias was so anxious to hear the
lay, that she entreated him to be silent; and Sir James, with a manly
mellow voice, with an exceedingly sweet strain in it, and a skill, both
of modulation and finger, such as showed admirable taste and instruction,
poured forth that beautiful song of the nightingale at Windsor, which
commences King James's story of his love, in his poem of the King's
Quhair.

There was an eager pressing round to hear, and not only were Lilias and
Malcolm, but old Sir David himself, much affected by the strain, which
the latter said put him in mind of the days of King Robert III., which,
sad as they were, now seemed like good old times, so much worse was the
present state of affairs. Sir James, however, seemed anxious to prevent
discussion of the verses he had sung, and applied to Malcolm to give a
specimen of his powers: and thus, with music, ballad, and lay, the
evening passed away, till the parting cup was sent round, and the Tutor
of Glenuskie and Malcolm marshalled their guest to the apartment where he
was to sleep, in a wainscoted box bedstead, and his two attendant
squires, a great iron-gray Scot and a rosy honest-faced Englishman, on
pallets on the floor.

In the morning he went on his journey, but not without an invitation to
rest there again on his way back, whether with or without his ransom. He
promised to come, saying that he should gladly bear to the King the last
advices from one so honoured as the Tutor of Glenuskie; and, on their
sides, Malcolm and Sir David resolved to do their best to have some gold
pieces to contribute, rather than so 'proper a knight' should fail in
raising his ransom; but gold was never plenty, and Patrick needed all
that his uncle could supply, to bear him to those