It had been a life of constant exertion, but full of hope and cheerfulness.  Amid that rude country, James’s own home was always a bright spot of peace, sunshine, and refinement.  With his beloved queen, and their fair little brood of children, the King cast aside his cares, and was all, and more than all, he had been as the ornament of Henry’s Court.  There all that was sweet, innocent, and beautiful was to be found; and there Malcolm, his royal kinsman’s confidant, counsellor, and chaplain, was always welcome as one of the home circle and family, till he broke away from such delights to labour in his task of reviving religion in the land.  A little band of men were gathering round, clergy awakening from their sloth or worldliness, young nobles who began to see what chivalry meant, burghers who rejoiced in order; and hope and encouragement strengthened the hands of the three kinsmen.

But, alas! there were those who deemed James’s justice on the savage prince and noble mere sacrilege on high blood, and who absolutely hated and loathed peace and order.  Those thirteen years of cheerful progress ended in that murder so unspeakably horrible in all its circumstances, which almost merits the name of a martyrdom to right and justice.  Malcolm so shuddered when he did but touch on it, and was so rent with agitation, that Esclairmonde perceived that when his beloved King had perished, he had indeed received the death-wound to his own fragile nature.

He had been actually in the Abbey of Perth; and had been one of those who lifted the mangled corpse from the vault, and sought in vain for a remnant of life, if but to grant the absolution, for which the victim had so piteously besought his murderers.  No wonder that Fastern’s E’en had whitened Malcolm’s hair!

But when the assassins were captured, and Joan of Beaufort was resolved that their death should be as atrocious as their crime, it was Malcolm who strove to bend her to forgiveness.  He bade her recollect King Henry, and how, when dealing with that cruel monster, the Castellane of Meaux, he had merely required death, without enhancing the agony; but Joan, in her rage and misery, had left the Englishwoman behind her, and was implacable.  All that human cruelty could invent was to be the lot of Robert Graham and his associates; and whereas they had granted no priest to their victim, none should be granted to them.

And then it was that all Malcolm had learnt of the true spirit of the Christian triumphed—­not only over the dark Keltic spirit of revenge, but over the shuddering of a tender and pitiful nature.  Where no other priest durst venture, he went.  Through all the frightful and protracted sufferings of Athol, Graham, Hall, and the rest, it was Malcolm Stewart who, never flinching, prayed with and for them; gathered their agonized sobs of confession, or strove to soften their hardness; spoke the words of absolution, and commended their departing souls.