"Send her up to me instantly—instantly!" rejoined the excited monarch. "This is the good woman about whom I have been so anxiously, but vainly, inquiring for these two or three years back. Quick, quick, bring her hither, Balcanquhail?"
In less than two minutes afterwards, Margaret Grahame was in the presence of her Sovereign. On her entrance, the King hastened towards her with extended hand, and after giving her a cordial welcome:—
"Where in all the world hast thou been, my good dame?" he said, "that I have not been able to find thee, although I have had emissaries employed from time to time, in all directions, for the last two or three years, to trace thee out, with the offer of a reward to him who should first discover thee? No one about thy old place of residence—whither I went myself to seek thee—could tell aught of thee. They knew not what had become of thee, nor where thou hadst gone to. Where, on earth, hast thou been?"
Margaret gave the history of her whole proceedings, and of all that had happened her since the eventful night on which she had entertained the king in her little cot on the skirts of the Torwood.
When she was done, Bruce, with many expressions of kindness, presented her with a large purse of gold for her present exigencies. He subsequently built her a handsome mansion-house, where she lived in comfort and independence for many years, on the site of her ruined cottage—a locality which he chose in order to commemorate the event which forms the ground of this tale—gave her a charter of three or four extensive farms that lay around it, dowered her daughter Margaret Grahame, who was by this means enabled to wed the man of her choice, and, finally, placed her two sons in situations of profit and trust about his own person.
And so, gentle reader, ends the story of the "Barley Bannock."