“Your grace may command me,” said Colville, though somewhat hesitatingly, for he saw the turn which things were taking.
“And you too, sweet Edith?” said the king, again saluting the blushing girl; and then, without waiting for an answer, continued, “that you may all know, my lieges, that we accept your benevolences merely for your own benefits, I give away this treasure, tempting as it is, to one who has well deserved the favour at our hand. Take her, Arthur, and confess that I have found a way to repay the debt I owed you. Receive his hand, fair maiden, and if it will add anything to its value in your eyes, know that it has this day saved a king’s life.”
The old man’s sentiments in regard to Arthur Winton had been undergoing a change imperceptible even to himself, from the moment he had perceived him the companion and probable favourite of the king; but the revolution was completed when he was made acquainted with the particulars of his interference in the royal behalf,—a merit which in his eyes would have outweighed a thousand faults in his intended son-in-law.
King James shortly afterwards left the house of Balmeny amid the blessings of its inmates; and to close our tale, we have only to add, that the gift of the monarch was shortly after confirmed at the altar, where Edith became the happy bride of Arthur Winton; and that the royal gratitude flowed freely on the wedded pair, as any who chooses to pursue the time-worn records of the Great Seal may satisfy himself.
HELEN WATERS:
A TRADITIONARY TALE OF THE ORKNEYS.
By John Malcolm.
The lost, the castaway on desert isles,
Or rocks of ocean, where no human aid
Can reach them more.
The mountains of Hoy, the highest of the Orkney Islands, rise abruptly out of the ocean to an elevation of fifteen hundred feet, and terminate on one side in a cliff, sheer and stupendous, as if the mountain had been cut down through the middle, and the severed portion of it buried in the sea. Immediately on the landward side of this precipice lies a soft green valley, embosomed among huge black cliffs, where the sound of the human voice, or the report of a gun, is reverberated among the rocks, where it gradually dies away into faint and fainter echoes.