He had stood for some minutes looking thoughtfully into the fire, and the sadness of his expression ever deepening, before the old man raised his face, and said, ‘You here, Malcolm? where are the others?’

‘Patie and Lily are still on the turret-top, fair Uncle,’ returned the boy.  ‘It was so cold;’ and he shivered again, and seemed as though he would creep into the fire.

‘And the reek?’ asked the uncle.

‘There is another reek broken out farther west,’ replied Malcolm.  ’Patie is sure now that it is as you deemed, Uncle; that it is a cattle-lifting from Badenoch.’

‘Heaven help them!’ sighed the old man, again folding his hands in prayer.  ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’

Malcolm took up the appeal of the Psalm, repeating it in Latin, but with none the less fervency; that Psalm that has ever since David’s time served as the agonized voice of hearts hot-burning at the sight of wrong.

‘Ah yes,’ he ended, ’there is nothing else for it!  Uncle, this was wherefore I came.  It was to speak to you of my purpose.’

‘The old purpose, Malcolm?  Nay, that hath been answered before.’

’But listen, listen, dear Uncle.  I have not spoken of it for a full year now.  So that you cannot say it is the caresses of the good monks.  No, nor the rude sayings of the Master of Albany,’ he added, colouring at a look of his uncle.  ’You bade me say no more till I be of full age; nor would I, save that I were safe lodged in an abbey; then might Patrick and Lily be wedded, and he not have to leave us and seek his fortune far away in France; and in Patie’s hands and leading, my vassals might be safe; but what could the doited helpless cripple do?’ he added, the colour rising hotly to his cheek with pain and shame.  ’Oh, Sir, let me but save my soul, and find peace in Coldingham!’

‘My poor bairn,’ said his uncle, laying a kind hand upon him, as in his eagerness he knelt on one knee beside the chair, ’it must not be.  It is true that the Regent and his sons would willingly see you in a cloister.  Nay, that unmanly jeer of Walter Stewart’s was, I verily believe, meant to drive you thither.  But were you there, then would poor Lilias become a prize worth having, and the only question would be, whether Walter of Albany, or Robert of Athole, or any of the rest of them, should tear her away to be the lady of their fierce ungodly households.’

‘You could give her to Patrick, Uncle.’

’No, Malcolm, that were not consistent with mine honour, or oaths to the King and State.  You living, and Laird of Glenuskie, Lilias is a mere younger sister, whom you may give in marriage as you will; but were you dead to the world, under a cowl, then the Lady of Glenuskie, a king’s grandchild, may not be disposed of, save by her royal kinsman, or by those who, woe worth the day! stand in his place.  I were no better than yon Wolf of Badenoch or the Master of Albany, did I steal a march on the Regent, and give the poor lassie to my own son!’