"If this should be, how strange shall be her destiny!" said the countess thoughtfully.
"How?" reiterated the queen-mother anxiously.
"Yes—for what said True Thomas of Ercildoun more than three hundred years ago?"
"What said he?"
Then the countess replied,—
"A queen of France shall bear a son,
Britain to brook from sea to sea;
And she of Bruce's blood shall come,
As near as to the ninth degree."
"I pray that Heaven may so shape out the future that your verse shall prove better than an idle rhyme," said Mary of Lorraine, clasping her delicate hands; "for the royal child of my dead husband is the ninth in descent from the hero of Bannockburn."
Future events, in the birth of James VI., fulfilled this old prophecy, which, in the days of our story, was in the mouths of all the people.
"And now, until I have the honour of again paying my devotion to your majesty, perhaps at Stirling, farewell," said Fawside.
"Adieu, monsieur—may God keep you!"