Then the old king paused, with a finger on his bearded lip, and held his breath, for their figures seemed familiar to him.
The maiden wore a mantle of yellow linen, with a tunic of scarlet silk that reached to her ankles, according to the fashion of the time; and instead of sleeves, this tunic had openings for her arms, which were white as hawthorn flowers, and were encircled by bracelets and armlets of fine silver. After the custom of all unmarried women, her hair, which was of the brightest golden colour, was uncovered, untied, and flowed in ringlets over her neck; and a brooch, which the king recognised to have been a gift of his own, beamed on her left shoulder.
Roused by a step among the last year's leaves, she started, and turned her beautiful face from her lover's breast, in fear and confusion.
"Cora!" said the King, in a breathless voice, and stood as one transfixed.
The youth wore a lurich of linked mail, with a cap of steel, and an eagle's wing therein. In his hand was a boar-spear, and on his back a short bow and quiver of arrows; at his belt hung a knife and silver bugle—for he was no other than the king's own huntsman, the son of Red John, and usually named Mac Ian Rua.
Malcolm stood silent for a minute, full of anger, grief, and scorn, for he now knew how her heart by pre-engagement had become invulnerable, and why the compliments of her princely suitors—the hardy Kenneth of the Isles, the gallant Græme of Strathearn, and the splendid Dunbar, who ruled all the fertile Lothians, from the sands of Tyningham on the east to the Torwood oaks on the west, were heard in vain.
"My own huntsman, by the holy crook of Saint Fillan! Have I lived to see my daughter in the arms of Mac Ian Rua?" exclaimed the old King, bitterly, as he strode forward, with his walking-staff clenched in his hand.
"Mac Ian," he exclaimed, "thou black-hearted traitor and presumptuous churl, what punishment is due to one who dares as thou this day hast dared?"
"Death," replied Mac Ian, without hesitation, yet pale as ashes, and laying a hand upon his breast, while with the other he handed his sword to the king; "death, Malcolm Mac Kenneth; and I am ready to die; strike and rid me of a life, that since the hapless hour I dared to lift my eyes and heart so high, has been to me a burden and a toil; for I lived as one who was in daily dread of losing his all—his life, his sun, and glory! God made thy daughter beautiful, O king, and if to love her was presumption, strike, strike here—one thrust, and all will be over!"
Pale as a statue, the Princess Cora stood between her incensed father and her humble but handsome lover, but not one word fell from her quivering lip, for her tongue was chained by love for both, by fear and by a pride that was not unmingled with shame, that her father, the proud old Malcolm II.—Rex Victoriosissimus—should have seen her hanging like a wanton on a common huntsman's neck.