d nor ransom. I would I knew
what was to be done with the life you have given me, my lord.'

'I will find a use for it, never fear,' said James, sadly, but kindly.
'Be my knight for the present, till better days come for us both.'

'With my whole heart!' said Patrick, fervently. 'Yours am I for ever, my
liege.'

'Then my first command is that you should rise, and rest,' said James,
assisting the knight to regain his feet, and placing him in the only
chair in the room. 'You must become a whole man as soon as may be.'

For Patrick's arm was in a sling, and evidently still painful and
useless, and he sank back, breathless and unresisting, like one who had
by no means regained perfect health, while his handsome features looked
worn and pale. 'I fear me,' said James, as the two cousins silently
shook hands, 'that you have moved over soon.--You surely had my message,
Bairdsbrae?'

'Oh yes, my lord,' replied Baird; 'but the lad was the harder to hold;
and after the fever was gone, we deemed he could well brook the journey
by water. 'Twas time I was here to guide ye too, my lord; you and the
callant baith look sair forfaughten.'

'We have had a sad time of it, Nigel,' said James, with trembling lip.

'And if Brewster tells me right, ye've not tasted food the whole day?'
said Nigel, laying an authoritative hand on his royal pupil. 'Nay, sit
ye down; here come the varlets with the meal I bade them have ready.'

James passively yielded, courteously signing to the others to share the
food that was spread on a table; and with the same scarcely conscious
grace, making inquiries, which elicited that Patrick Drummond's hurts had
been caused by his horse falling and rolling over with him, whilst with
Sir John Swinton and other Scottish knights he was reconnoitring the line
of the English march. He was too much injured to be taken back to the
far distant camp, and had accordingly been intrusted to the French
farmer, with no attendant but a young French horse-boy, since he was too
poor to keep a squire. He knew nothing more, for fever had run high; and
he had not even been sensible of his desertion by his French hosts on the
approach of the English, far less of the fire, and of his rescue by the
King and Malcolm; but for this he seemed inclined to compensate to the
utmost, by the intense eagerness of devotion with which he regarded
James, who sat meanwhile crushed down by the weight of his own grief.

'I can eat no more,