herself of all feeling towards the father of her child, as to make him an object of aversion to his son.  She had long told him his real name, and urged him to demand from his father an acknowledgment of his being heir to the proud barony of the Bruce.  His likeness to herself was so strong, that she knew it must carry conviction to his father; but to make his identity still more certain, she furnished him with certain jewels and papers, none but herself could produce.  She had done this in the presence of two faithful witnesses, the father and brother of her son’s betrothed bride, high lords of Normandy, the former of which made it a condition annexed to his consent to the marriage, that as soon as possible afterwards he should urge and claim his rights.  Sir Walter, of course, willingly complied; they were married by the name of Brus, and their child so baptized.  A war, which retained Sir Walter in arms with his sovereign, prevented his seeking Scotland till his boy was a year old, and then for his sake, far more than for his own, the young father determined on asserting his birthright, his child should not be nameless, as he had been; but to spare his unknown parent all public mortification, he joined the martial games without any cognizance or bearing on his shield.

“Terrible were the ravings in which the baron alluded to the interview he had had with his murdered child; the angelic mildness and generosity of the youthful warrior; that, amid all his firmness never to depart from his claim—­as it was not alone himself but his child he would irreparably injure—­he never wavered in his respectful deference to his parent.  He quitted the court in the belief that the baron sought Kildrummie to collect the necessary papers for substantiating his claim; but ere he died, it appeared his eyes were opened.  The fierce passions of the baron had been too long restrained in the last interview; they burst even his politic control, and he had flung the papers received from, the hand of his too-confiding son on the blazing hearth, and with dreadful oaths swore that if he would not instantly retract his claim, and bind himself by the most sacred promise never to breathe the foul tale again, death should be its silent keeper.  He would not bring his own head low, and avow that he had dishonored a scion of the blood-royal.

“Appalled far more at the dark, fiendish passions he beheld than the threat held out to himself, Sir Walter stood silent a while, and then mildly demanded to be heard; that if so much public mortification to his parent would attend the pursuance of his claims at the present time, he would consent to forego them, on condition of his father’s solemnly promising on his deathbed to reveal the truth, and do him tardy justice then, but forego them altogether he would not, were his life the forfeit.  The calm firmness of his tone, it is supposed, lashed his father into greater madness, and thus the dark deed was done.