The patriot died--let me not utter how; no Scottish tongue should speak those words, save with the upraised arm and trumpet shout of vengeance! I could not rest in England then; I could not face the tyrant who dared proclaim and execute as traitor the noblest hero, purest patriot, that ever walked this earth.

But men said I sought the lyric schools, the poet's haunts in Provence, and I welcomed the delusion; but it was to Scotland that I came, unknown, and silently, to mark if with her Wallace all life and soul had fled.

I saw enough to know that were there but a fitting head, her hardy sons would struggle yet for freedom--but not yet; that chief art thou, and at the close of the last year I took passage to Denmark, intending to rest there till Scotland called me." "And 'tis thence thou comest, Nigel?
Can it be, intelligence of my movements hath reached so far north already ?" inquired the king, somewhat surprised at the abruptness of his brother's pause.
"Not so, my liege.

The vessel which bore me was wrecked off the breakers of Buchan, and cast me back again to the arms of Scotland.

I found hospitality, shelter, kindness; nay more, were this a time and place to speak of happy, trusting love--" he added, turning away from the Bruce's penetrating eye, "and week after week passed, and found me still an inmate of the Tower of Buchan." "Buchan!" interrupted the king, hastily; "the castle of a Comyn, and thou speakest of love!" "Of as true, as firm-hearted a Scottish patriot, my liege, as ever lived in the heart of woman--one that has naught of Comyn about her or her fair children but the name, as speedily thou wilt have proof.