The Monastery

ed down on

their coa

he March an

an even

Mai

the English Captain, and that her cattle were not to be driven off, or her corn burned. Among others who heard this report, it reached t

y of considerable extent, not very far from the patrimony of Saint Mary's, and lying upon the same side of the river with the narrow vale of Glendearg, at the head of which was the little tower of the Glendinnings. Here they had lived, be

at a nation, though conquered and overrun by invaders, may yet wage against them such a war of detail as shall in the end become fatal to the foreigners. In one of these, however, Walter Avenel fell, and the news which came to the house of

nconscious of her misery; but when the first stunning effect of grief was so far passed away that she could form an estimate of her own situation, the widow of Avenel had cause to envy the lot of her husband in his dark and silent abode. The domestics who had guided her to her place of refuge, were presently obliged to disperse for their own safety, or to seek for necessary subsistence; and the shepherd and his wife, whose poor cottage

hepherd - and he wrung his hands in the bitterness of agony, "the th

ing back their necks to the byre, and routing while the sto

seen the day forty wad not have ventured this length. Bu

e, "our leddy is half gane already, as ye may see by that flei

passes my puir wit. I care little for mysell, or you, Tibb - we can m

nced by the paleness of her look, her quivering lip, and dead-set

nder, has had assurance from the Southern loons, and nae soldier to steer them for one cause or other. Now, if the leddy could bow her

her kin mony a lang year after her banes were in the mould. Oh! gudeman, to

at may we do? - to stay here is mere starvation; and where

the tower. - Dame Elspeth is of good folk, a widow, and the mother of orphans - she will give us ho

aid Martin, "you see the

at she is convent-bred, and can lay silk b

child to her bosom and making it clear from what motives she d

lcome at her hand. Men are scarce now, my leddy, with these wars; and gie me a thought of time to it,

feasible house; but there will be neither pearlins to

; and hard it is if we twa canna work for three folk's meat, forby my dainty wee leddy there. Come awa, come awa, nae use

e which it showed to be caught by strangers, was employed to carry the few blankets and other trifles which they possessed. When Shagram came to his master's well-known whistl

pplied something to the wound, "must you

and rues it not!" sai

he will keep himself from the handy stroke. But let us go our way; the trash that is le

ng tone, "haud your peace! Think what ye're saying, and we hae

of the fairies, either by their title of good neighbours or by any other, e

e mother, as a sting of bitter recollection crossed her mind. "Oh, who could have believed that the head, which

fashion upon Shagram, betwixt two bundles of bedding; the Lady of Avenel walking by the animal's side; Tibb

de bog," he said, "I shall warrant ye are on the top of the tower." But to get across the bog was a point of no small difficulty. The farther they ventured into it, though proceeding with all the caution which Martin's experience recommended, the more unsound the ground became, until, after they had passed some places of great peril, their best argument for going forward came to be, that they had to encounter equal danger in returning. The Lady of Avenel had been tenderly nurtured, but what will not a woman endure when her child is in danger? Complaining less of the dangers of the road than her attendants, who had been inured to such from their infancy, she kept herself close by the side of the pony, watching its every footstep, and ready, if it should flounder in the morass, to snatch her little Mary from its back. At length they came to a place where the

fancy might form into a human figure; but which afforded to Martin only the sorrowful conviction, that the danger of their situation was about to be increased by a heavy fog. He once more essayed to lead

animals in traversing bogs is one of the most curious parts of their nature, and is a fact generally established. But it was remarkable, that the child more than once mentioned the beautiful lady and her signals, and that Shagram seemed to be in th

said Tibb, in a

that now!" said Martin in reply. "Tell y

s, or cairns, on the tops of the neighbouring hills, by which he was enable

sed by the spouse of the humble feuar. And now, so much was her pride humbled, that she was to ask to share the precarious safety of the same feuar's widow, and her pittance of food, which might perhaps be yet more precarious. Martin probably guessed what was passing in her mind, for he looked a

f her retracting, he added, "I will step on and see Dame Elspeth - I kend her

nt of pride in sheltering and supporting a woman of such superior birth and rank; and, not to do Elspeth Glendinning injustice, she felt sympathy for one whose fate resembled her own in so many points, yet was so much more severe. Every