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only man she met, who was one of the menials; but Catharine passed on without notice or reply, and gained the little garden without farther interruption.

Louise indicated to her a heap of ruins, which, covered with underwood, was close to the castle-wall. It had probably been originally a projection from the building; and the small fissure, which communicated with the dungeon, contrived for air, had terminated within it. But the aperture had been a little enlarged by decay, and admitted a dim ray of light to its recesses, although it could not be observed by those who visited the place with torch-light aids.

"Here is dead silence," said Catharine, after she had listened attentively for a moment.- "Heaven and earth, he is gone!"

"We must risk something," said her companion, and ran her fingers over the strings of her guitar.

A sigh was the only answer from the depth of the dungeon. Catharine then ventured to speak. "I am here, my lord-I am here, with food and drink." "Ha! Ramorny?—The jest comes too latedying," was the answer.

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His brain is turned, and no wonder, thought Catharine; but whilst there is life, there may be hope.

"It is I, my lord, Catharine Glover-I have food if I could pass it safely to you."

"Heaven bless thee, maiden! I thought the pain was over, but it glows again within me at the name of food."

"The food is here, but how, ah how, can I

pass it

to you? the chink is so narrow, the wall is so thick! Yet there is a remedy-I have it.-Quick, Louise; cut me a willow bough, and the tallest you can find."

The glee-maiden obeyed, and by means of a cleft in the top of the wand, Catharine transmitted several morsels of the soft cakes, soaked in broth, which served at once for food and for drink.

The unfortunate young man ate little, and with difficulty, but prayed for a thousand blessings on the head of his comforter. "I had destined thee to be the slave of my vices," he said, "and yet thou triest to become the preserver of my life! But away, and save thyself."

"I will return with food as I shall see opportunity," said Catharine, just as the glee-maiden plucked her sleeve, and desired her to be silent and stand close.

Both crouched among the ruins, and they heard the voices of Ramorny and the mediciner in close conversation.

"He is stronger than I thought," said the former, in a low croaking tone. "How long held out Dalwolsy, when the Knight of Liddesdale prisoned him in his castle of Hermitage?"

"For a fortnight," answered Dwining; "but he was a strong man, and had some assistance by grain which fell from a granary above his prison-house."*

* Sir Alexander Ramsay of Dalhousie having irritated William Douglas, Lord of Galloway, by obtaining the Sheriffship of Teviotdale, which the haughty baron considered due to himself, was surprised in Hawick while exercising his office, and confined

"Were it not better end the matter more speedily? The Black Douglas comes this way. He is not in Albany's secret. He will demand to see the Prince, and all must be over ere he comes."

They passed on in their dark and fatal conversation.

"Now gain we the tower," said Catharine to her companion, when she saw they had left the garden, "I had a plan of escape for myself—I will turn it into one of rescue for the Prince. The dey-woman enters the Castle about vesper time, and usually leaves her cloak in the passage as she goes into the pantler's office with the milk. Take thou the cloak, muffle thyself close, and pass the warder boldly; he is usually drunken at that hour, and thou wilt go, as the deywoman, unchallenged through gate and along bridge, if thou bear thyself with confidence. Then away to meet the Black Douglas; he is our nearest and only aid."

"But," said Louise, "is he not that terrible lord who threatened me with shame and punishment?"

"Believe it," said Catharine, "such as thou or I never dwelt an hour in the Douglas's memory, either for good or evil. Tell him that his son-in-law, the Prince of Scotland, dies—treacherously famished-in Falkland Castle, and thou wilt merit not pardon only, but reward."

in Hermitage Castle until he died of famine in June, A. D. 1342. Godscroft mentions the circumstance of the grain dropping from the cornloft.-p. 75.

"I care not for reward," said Louise; "the deed will reward itself. But, methinks, to stay is more dangerous than to go-let me stay, then, and nourish the unhappy Prince, and do you depart to bring help. If they kill me before you return, I leave you my poor lute, and pray you to be kind to my poor Charlot."

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"No, Louise,” replied Catharine, “you are a more privileged and experienced wanderer than I am -do you go-and if you find me dead on your return, as may well chance, give my poor father this ring, and a lock of my hair, and say, Catharine died in endeavouring to save the blood of Bruce. And give this other lock to Henry; say, Catharine thought of him to the last; and that if he has judged her too scrupulous touching the blood of others, he will then know it was not because she valued her own.'

They sobbed in each other's arms; and the intervening hours till evening were spent in endeavouring to devise some better mode of supplying the captive with nourishment, and in the construction of a tube, composed of hollow reeds, slipping into each other, by which liquids might be conveyed to him. The bell of the village church of Falkland tolled to vespers. The dey,* or farm-woman, entered with her pitchers, to deliver the milk for the family, and to hear and tell the news stirring. She had scarcely entered the kitchen, when the female minstrel, again throwing herself in Catharine's arms, and assuring her of her unalterable fidelity, crept in silence down stairs, the

*Hence perhaps, dairy-woman and dairy.

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CATHARINE GLOVER AND THE GLEE-MAIDEN AT THE CELL.

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