I'm free to own as much of it is due to
King Harry as to his own noble self.--Did ye say they had streekit him in
the chapel, Lord Malcolm? I'd fain look on the bonnie face of him; I'll
ne'er look on his like again.'

No sooner had old Bairdsbrae gone, than Malcolm flung himself down before
his cousin, crying, 'Oh, Patrick, you will hear me! I cannot rest till
you know how changed I have been.'

'Changed!' said Patrick; 'ay, and for the better! Why, Malcolm, I never
durst hope to see you so sturdy and so heartsome. My father would have
been blithe to see you such a gallant young squire. Even the halt is
gone!'

'Nearly,' said Malcolm. 'But I would fain be puny and puling, to have
the clear heart that once I had. Oh, hear me! hear me! and pardon me,
Patie!'

And Malcolm, in his agitation, poured forth the whole story of his having
shifted from his old cherished purpose of devoting himself to the service
of Heaven, and leaving lands and vassals to the stronger hands of Patrick
and Lilias; how, having thus given himself to the world, he had fallen
into temptation; how he had let himself be led to persecute with his suit
a noble lady, vowed like himself; how he had almost agreed to marry her
by force: and how he had been running into the ordinary dissipations of
the camp, abstaining from confession, avoiding mass; disobeying orders,
plunging into scenes of plunder, till he had almost been the death of
Patrick, whom he had already so cruelly wronged.

So felt the boy. Fresh from that death-bed, the evils his conscience had
protested against from the first appeared to him frightfully heinous, and
his anguish of self-reproach was such, that Patrick listened in the
greatest anxiety lest he should hear of some deadly stain on his young
kinsman's scutcheon; but when the tale was told, and he had demanded 'Is
that all?' and found that no further overt act was alleged against
Malcolm, he breathed a long sigh, and muttered, 'You daft laddie! you had
fairly startled me! So this is the coil, is it? Who ever told you to
put on a cowl, I should like to know? Why, 'twas what my poor father
ever declared against. I take your lands! By my troth! 'twould be
enough to make me break faith with your sister, if I _could_!'

'The vow was in my heart,' faltered Malcolm.

'In a fule's head!' said Patrick. 'What right have babes to be talking
of vows? 'Twould be the best tidings I've heard for many a long day,
that you were w