"Nay, nay, na sae bad as that, I judge. Dinna greet, Maisie, my bonnie bird—ye couldna help it, my dow," cried Alick, recovering himself, and making a heroic effort to conceal the pain he felt. "Look to her, some of ye," he added sharply, as Maisie sank fainting on the floor.
It was a very severe scald, said the doctor whom the alarmed household quickly summoned, and it would be many a long day before Sir Alick would be fit to wear his boot or put foot in saddle again.
But thanks greatly to the devoted nursing he received from wife and mother, and to his own youth and health, Sir Alick completely recovered from the injury. But in the meantime, the bubble had burst, Sherrifmuir had been fought, Mar's army had been totally routed, the prisons in England and Scotland had been filled with his misguided followers, and the headsman and the hangman were beginning their ghastly work.
Sir Alick, thanks to the accident which had prevented his taking any overt part in the rebellion, had escaped both imprisonment and confiscation; and it was probably Simon Glenlivet's influence which had availed to cover over Sir Alick's dalliance with the Jacobite plotters.
Maisie had proved herself a most tender and efficient nurse, but it was now her turn to be ill, and one quiet day, after she had presented her lord with an heir to the Glenlivet name, she told him the whole truth about that lucky accident with the boiling water; but auld Leddy Glenlivet never knew that her son had been saved from a rebel's fate by a wife's stratagem.
THE KING'S TRAGEDY.
AN HISTORICAL TALE.
BY ALFRED H. MILES.
In the year 1436, a party of horsemen, weary and belated, were seen hurrying amid the deepening darkness of a December day towards the ferry of the Firth of Forth. Their high carriage, no less than the quality of their accoutrements, albeit dimmed and travel-stained by the splash of flood and field, showed them to be more than a mere party of traders seeking safety in numbers, and travelling in pursuit of gain. In the centre of the group rode a horseman, whose aspect and demeanour marked him as the chief, if not the leader, of the band; and by his side a lady, whose grace and beauty could not be altogether concealed by the closeness of her attire or the darkness of the night. These were the King and Queen of Scotland, James the First and his fair wife Joan, surrounded by a small band of faithful followers, bound for the monastery of the Black Friars of Perth to hold Christmas Carnival.