Hope should not leave a man while he has life, and friends like these, and counsellors like yourself.

Now have I been rebuked, and hope is given me afresh." Then he smiled and turned to me.
"Why, Ranald my cousin, this is kindness indeed.

I had not thought that you would bide with a lost cause, nor should I have thought of blame for you had you gone from this poor England; you are not bound to her as are her sons." "My king," I said truly, "there are things that bind more closely even than birth." I think he was pleased, for he smiled, and shook his head at me as though to say that he could not take my saying to himself, as I meant it.

And then, before we could ask him more, he began to think of our needs.
"Here we have been pressed for food, friends, for the last few days, and I fear you must fast with us.

The deer have fled from our daily hunting, and the wild fowl have sought open water.