should thus send back every drop of blood
to thy little heart," she said, playfully. "For shame, for shame! how
art thou fitted to be a warrior's bride? They are but Scottish men, and
true, methinks, if I recognize their leader rightly. And it is even so."

"Sir Robert Keith, right welcome," she added, as, marshalled by young
Alan, the knight appeared, bearing his plumed helmet in his hand, and
displaying haste and eagerness alike in his flushed features and soiled
armor.

"Ye have ridden long and hastily. Bid them hasten our evening meal, my
son; or stay, perchance Sir Robert needs thine aid to rid him of this
garb of war. Thou canst not serve one nobler."

"Nay, noble lady, knights must don, not doff their armor now. I bring ye
news, great, glorious news, which will not brook delay. A royal
messenger I come, charged by his grace my king--my country's king--with
missives to his friends, calling on all who spurn a tyrant's yoke--who
love their land, their homes, their freedom--on all who wish for
Wallace--to awake, arise, and join their patriot king!"

"Of whom speakest thou, Sir Robert Keith? I charge thee, speak!"
exclaimed Nigel, starting from the posture of dignified reserve with
which he had welcomed the knight, and springing towards him.

"The patriot and the king!--of whom canst thou speak?" said Alan, at the
same instant. "Thine are, in very truth, marvellous tidings, Sir Knight;
an' thou canst call up one to unite such names, and worthy of them, he
shall not call on me in vain."

"Is he not worthy, Alan of Buchan, who thus flings down the gauntlet,
who thus dares the fury of a mighty sovereign, and with a handful of
brave men prepares to follow in the steps of Wallace, to the throne or
to the scaffold?"

"Heed not my reckless boy, Sir Robert," said the countess, earnestly, as
the eyes of her son fell beneath the knight's glance of fiery reproach;
"no heart is truer to his country, no arm more eager to rise in her
defence."

"The king! the king!" gasped Nigel, some strange over-mastering emotion
checking his utterance. "Who is it that has thus dared, thus--"

"And canst thou too ask, young sir?" returned the knight, with a smile
of peculiar meaning. "Is thy sovereign's name unknown to thee? Is Robert
Bruce a name unknown, unheard, unloved, that thou, too, breathest it
not?"

"My brother, my brave, my noble brother!--I saw it, I knew it! Thou wert
no changeling, no slavish neutral; but even as I felt