Let me stay, then, and nourish the unhappy Prince, and do you depart to bring help.

If they kill me before you return, I leave you my poor lute, and pray you to be kind to my poor Charlot." "No, Louise," replied Catharine, "you are a more privileged and experienced wanderer than I--do you go; and if you find me dead on your return, as may well chance, give my poor father this ring and a lock of my hair, and say, Catharine died in endeavouring to save the blood of Bruce.

And give this other lock to Henry; say, Catharine thought of him to the last, and that, if he has judged her too scrupulous touching the blood of others, he will then know it was not because she valued her own." They sobbed in each other's arms, and the intervening hours till evening were spent in endeavouring to devise some better mode of supplying the captive with nourishment, and in the construction of a tube, composed of hollow reeds, slipping into each other, by which liquids might be conveyed to him.

The bell of the village church of Falkland tolled to vespers.

The dey, or farm woman, entered with her pitchers to deliver the milk for the family, and to hear and tell the news stirring.