"We have gained a battle," said old Lord Drummond, in a growling whisper to his daughters: "we have routed our false king—slain his minion Ramsay of Balmain, whom some styled Lord of Bothwell; we have cut to pieces his red-doubletted guard; yet I am not one inch nearer discovering where the foul villains of the late court have hidden or murdered your sister Maggie, to further their English alliance."
Crushed by their own sorrows, the poor girls did not reply to this vituperation, save by the tears which fell silently over their cheeks. Young girls in general look to the bright side of everything: thus the sisters were full of hope; and they loved their lost Margaret so much, that they shrunk, instinctively, with dismay from the rough inferences of their father; and from the idea that any one could injure a being so gentle and so harmless.
"Listen to me, Effie Drummond," resumed the old lord, through his long mustachios, which resembled those of a walrus: "look a little more at the quarterings on Lord Hailes' tabard-coad and a little less at yonder devilish ships; and thou, too, Madam Sybilla—what, the fury! hath this skipper's son gained more influence over thee in one year than I have done in eighteen?"
Still they wept silently, for none had spoken to them kindly save young Rothesay, and he knew not their secret; but now the sudden entrance of Lord Home, with his mail covered by dust, relieved them of their father's persecution, fur all now turned to him.
"Welcome, Bailie of Coldinghame!" said Angus, who by his loftiness and confidence seemed more like a king than a mere peer; "what tidings—hast heard of our missing man?"
"Nought, save that he hath fled; but I have been harrying the lands of the malcontents, his people."
"And how many castles hast thou burned?"
"At the head of a thousand Border spears, I have ridden through all the Howe of Angus, where men shall long remember the slogan of a Home!" replied the chief, who was a very good type of those feudal nobles, who never bowed to religion or to law, and who never knew remorse for crime, or fear of God or man, and were generally as destitute of pure patriotism as ever Scottish peers have been in later years. "I have sacked twenty farm towns on the baronies of the so-called Duke of Montrose; I have ruined and dismantled ten castles in the Carse of Gowrie, and laid all the towns of Fife under heavy contribution."
"Ye have done well, by St. Bryde!" said Angus, giving a glance of stern curiosity at Rothesay, who had listened with stolid apathy.
And now entered, quite as hastily, Robert, Lord Lyle; he was one of James's most faithful servants, and had recently returned from an embassy to England, concerning the slaying of Barton.