and
consequently high in that monarch's favor, a reputation which his enmity
to the house of Bruce, one of the most troublesome competitors of the
crown, did not tend to diminish. Fortunately perhaps for Isabella, the
bustling politics of her husband constantly divided them. The births of
a daughter and son had no effect in softening his hard and selfish
temper; he looked on them more as incumbrances than pleasures, and
leaving the countess in the strong Tower of Buchan, he himself, with a
troop of armed and mounted Comyns, attached himself to the court and
interests of Edward, seeming to forget that such beings as a wife and
children had existence. Months, often years, would stretch between the
earl's visits to his mountain home, and then a week was the longest
period of his lingering; but no evidence of a gentler spirit or of less
indifference to his children was apparent, and years seemed to have
turned to positive evil, qualities which in youth had merely seemed
unamiable.

Desolate as the situation of the countess might perhaps appear, she
found solace and delight in moulding the young minds of her children
according to the pure and elevated cast of her own. All the
long-suppressed tenderness of her nature was lavished upon them, and on
their innocent love she sought to rest the passionate yearnings of her
own. She taught them to be patriots, in the purest, most beautiful
appropriation of the term,--to spurn the yoke of the foreigner, and the
oppressor, however light and flowery the links of that yoke might seem.
She could not bid them love and revere their father as she longed to do,
but she taught them that where their duty to their country and their
free and unchained king interfered not, in all things they must obey and
serve their father, and seek to win his love.

Once only had the Countess of Buchan beheld the vision which had crossed
her youth. He had come, it seemed unconscious of his track, and asked
hospitality for a night, evidently without knowing who was the owner of
the castle; perhaps his thoughts were preoccupied, for a deep gloom was
on his brow, and though he had started with evident pleasure when
recognizing his beautiful hostess, the gloom speedily resumed
ascendency. It was but a few weeks after the fatal battle of Falkirk,
and therefore Isabella felt there was cause enough for depression and
uneasiness. The graces of boyhood had given place to a finished
manliness of deportment, a calmer ex