who were gazing in the opposite direction, Sir James Stewart
and his two attendants suddenly came round the foot of Jill's Knowe upon
the fugitives, who were profiting by the interval to loosen the girths of
their horses, and water them at the pool under the thicket, whilst
Halbert in vain tried to pacify and reason with the young master, who had
thrown himself on the grass in an agony of grief and despair. Sir James,
after the first momentary start, recognized the party in an instant, and
at once leapt from his horse, exclaiming--

'How now, my bonnie man--my kind host--what is it? what makes this
grief?'

'Do not speak to me, Sir,' muttered the unhappy boy. 'They have been
reft--reft from me, and I have done nothing for them. Walter of Albany
has them, and I am here.'

And he gave way to another paroxysm of grief, while Halbert explained to
Sir James Stewart that when Sir Patrick Drummond had gone to embark for
France, with the army led to the aid of Charles VI. by the Earl of
Buchan, his father and cousins, with a large escort, had accompanied him
to Eyemouth; whence, after taking leave of him, they had set out to spend
Passion-tide and Easter at Coldingham Abbey, after the frequent fashion
of the devoutly inclined among the Scottish nobility, in whose castles
there was often little commodity for religious observances. Short,
however, as was the distance, they had in the midst of it been suddenly
assailed by a band of armed men, among whom might easily be recognized
the giant form of young Walter Stewart, the Master of Albany, the Regent
Duke Murdoch's eldest son, who was well known for his lawless excesses
and violence. His father's silky sayings, and his own ruder speeches,
had long made it known to the House of Glenuskie that the family policy
was to cajole or to drive the sickly heir into a convent, and, rendering
Lilias the possessor of the broad lands inherited from both parents,
unite her and them to the Albany family.

The almost barbarous fierceness and wild licentiousness of Walter would
have made the arrangement abhorrent to Lilias, even had not love passages
already passed between her and her cousin, Patrick Drummond, and Sir
David had hitherto protected her by keeping Malcolm in the secular life;
but Walter, it seemed, had grown impatient, and had made this treacherous
attack, evidently hoping to rid himself of the brother, and secure the
sister. No sooner had the Tutor of Glenuskie perceived th