‘In Fife, striving to get a force together to hinder the King’s return. He’ll not do that; men are too weary of misrule to join him against King James; but he is like, any day, to come back with reivers enough to terrify his father, and get your sister into his hands—indeed, his mother is ready to give her up to him whenever he asks. He has sworn to have her now, were it merely to vex the King and you, and show that he is to be daunted neither by man, heaven, nor hell.’
‘And he may come?’
‘Any day or any night,’ said James. ‘Since he went I have striven, in vain, to devise some escape for your sister; but Heaven has surely sent you to hinder so foul a wrong! Yet, if you went to Glenuskie and raised your vassals—’
‘It would be loss of time,’ said Malcolm; ‘and this matter may not be put to the doubtful issue of a fray between my men and his villains. Out of this place must she go at once. But, alas! how win to the speech of her?’
‘That can I do,’ said Kennedy. ‘For a few brief moments, each day, have I spoken to her in the chapel. Nay, I had left this place before now, had she not prayed me to remain as her only friend.’
‘Heaven must requite you, Cousin James,’ said Malcolm, warmly. ‘I deserved not this of you.’
‘All that I desire,’ said Kennedy, ‘is to see this land of ours cease to be full of darkness and cruel habitations. Malcolm, you know the King better than I; may we not trust that he will come as a redresser of wrongs?’
‘Know you not his pledge to himself?—“I will make the key keep the castle, and the bracken bush keep the cow, though I live the life of a dog to bring it about!”’
‘God strengthen his hand,’ said Kennedy, with tears in his eyes; ‘and bring better days to our poor land. Cousin, has not your heart burnt within you, to be doing somewhat to bring these countrymen of ours to better mind?’
‘I have grieved,’ said Malcolm. ‘The sight has been the woe and horror of my whole life; and either it is worse now than when I went away, or I see it clearer.’