"Sybilla—Euphemia!" said he.
But there was no answer.
For those three kneeling figures were stone dead!
* * * * * * *
CHAPTER LXXI.
CONCLUSION.
"I never liked the landsman life, the earth is aye the same
Gie me the ocean for my dower, my vessel for my hame.
When life's last sun gangs feebly doon, and death comes to the door,—
When a' the world's a dream to us, we'll go to sea no more,
No more—we'll go to sea no more!"—Scottish Song.
Lord Drummond lived to see one of his daughters become a countess, and the other in a fair way to wear a coronet; for little Lady Beatrix grew a beautiful woman, and in after years became the Countess of James Earl of Arran, commander of the Scots in the French and Danish wars; while Elizabeth was wedded to the war-like Master of Angus, who fell at Flodden, with two hundred knights and gentlemen, all of the great and gallant Douglas' name; and could the proud old lord have had a vision of her descendants, his ambitious heart would have swelled with joy, for her grand-daughter, Margaret, became the mother of Henry, King of Scotland, from whom the kings of Britain, France, Spain, Prussia, and the emperors of Germany, are descended.
After the horrible catastrophe which closed our last chapter, we at first intended to have said no more; but as this narrative has partaken much more of the character of a veritable history than a romance, a few parting words are necessary, before we say farewell to those who have accompanied us so far.
The historians of later times have revealed to us what was then unknown,—that the unhappy Margaret Drummond was, as Robert Douglas has it, "taken away to make room for a daughter of England," and that her two elder sisters perished with her.