"You are overforward, imps. Eight years hence it will be time enough for Lizzie, and for you, Beatie, to think of lovers, and talk of hoods and veils. Marry come up! child, thou canst not spin yet! But see—Barton's boat hath reached the Rock of St. Nicholas."
"Alas!" said Margaret, sadly, "what evil tidings we have to give him of his father's fate."
As the two friends sprang ashore, the old seamen who were clustered by the chapel wall, all doffed their bonnets, and murmured a hearty welcome.
The rock was the ancient landing-place, and lay to the westward of the old harbour. It was there that David, Crown Prince of Scotland, landed on his return from the Crusades; and there, that two hundred years after, the good Sir James Douglas embarked for Jerusalem, with the heart of Robert Bruce; for "bonnie Dundee" is a place of many old and many stirring memories.
"They are coming this way," said Sybilla, in a flutter; "we must hasten to receive them."
"But, lo!—what scurvy companion do they bring with them?" added the haughty Euphemia.
"Sir Hew Borthwick," said Lizzie, "who cheated our butler at dice, and stole the gateward's bugle."
"Sir!—how can you thus pollute the title of knighthood?" asked the eldest sister.
"But do not the people call him so?" said Margaret.
"He is a mansworn priest," continued Euphemia, "and I marvel that the Lord Bishop of Dunblane permits him to be at liberty. Was not Father Arbuckle built up in the gable of Gilston kirk for the same crime—abandoning his cloister?"