At last a pilgrim appeared at the gate, and requested to see me alone; fearing nothing from a man in so sacred a habit, I admitted him.

Presenting me with a packet which had been intrusted to him by Lord Douglas, he told me my patron had been forcibly carried on board a vessel at Montrose, to be conveyed with the unhappy Baliol to the Tower of London.

Douglas, on this outrage, sent to the monastery at Aberbrothick, and under the pretense of making a religious confession before he sailed, begged a visit from the sub-prior.

'I am that prior,' continued the pilgrim; 'and having been born on the Douglas lands, he well knew the claim he had to my fidelity.

He gave me this packet, and conjured me to lose no time in conveying it to you.