Two Penniless Princesses | Page 6

in the many long and dreary hours that they had to pass,
unbrightened save by the inextinguishable buoyancy of young creatures
together. When their mother was dying, Hepburn could not help for
very shame admitting a priest to her bedside, and allowing the clergy to
perform her obsequies in full form. This had led to a more complete
perception of the condition of the poor Princesses, just at the time when
the two worst tyrants over the young King, Crichton and Livingstone,
had fallen out, and he had been able to put himself under the guidance
of his first cousin, James Kennedy, Bishop of St. Andrews and now
Chancellor of Scotland, one of the wisest, best, and truest- hearted men
in Scotland, and imbued with the spirit of the late King.
By his management Hepburn was induced to make submission and
deliver up Dunbar Castle to the King with all its captives, and the
meeting between the brother and sisters was full of extreme delight on
both sides. They had been together very little since their father's death,
only meeting enough to make them long for more opportunities; and
the boy at fifteen years old was beginning to weary after the home
feeling of rest among kindred, and was so happy amidst his sisters that
no attempt at breaking up the party at Dunbar had yet been made, as its
situation made it a convenient abode for the Court. Though he had
never had such advantages of education as, strangely enough, captivity
had afforded to his father, he had not been untaught, and his rapid,
eager, intelligent mind had caught at all opportunities afforded by those
palace monasteries of Scotland in which he had stayed for various
periods of his vexed and stormy minority. Good Bishop Kennedy, with
whom he had now spent many months, had studied at Paris and had
passed four years at Rome, so as to be well able both to enlarge and
stimulate his notions. In Eleanor he had found a companion delighted

to share his studies, and full likewise of original fancy and of that vein
of poetry almost peculiar to Scottish women; and Jean was equally
charming for all the sports in which she could take part, while the little
ones, whom, to his credit be it spoken, he always treated as brothers,
were pleasant playthings.
His presence, with all that it involved, had made a most happy change
in the maidens' lives; and yet there was still great dreariness, much
restraint in the presence of constant precaution against violence, much
rudeness and barbarism in the surroundings, absolute poverty in the
plenishing, a lack of all beauty save in the wild and rugged face of
northern nature, and it was hardly to be wondered at that young people,
inheritors of the cultivated instincts of James I. and of the Plantagenets,
should yearn for something beyond, especially for that sunny southern
land which report and youthful imagination made them believe an ideal
world of peace, of poetry, and of chivalry, and the loving elder sister
who seemed to them a part of that golden age when their noble and
tender-hearted father was among them.
The boy's foot was on the turret-stairs, and he was out on the
battlements--a tall lad for his age, of the same colouring as Eleanor, and
very handsome, except for the blemish of a dark-red mark upon one
cheek.
'How now, wee Andie?' he exclaimed, tossing the baby boy up in his
arms, and then on the cry of 'Johnnie too!' 'Me too!' performing the
same feat with the other two, the last so boisterously that Mary
screamed that 'the bairnie would be coupit over the crag.'
'What, looking out over the sea?' he cried to his elder sisters. 'That's the
wrang side! Ye should look out on the other, to see Glenuskie coming
with Davie and Malcolm, so we'll have no lack of minstrelsy and tales
to-night, that is if the doited old council will let me alone. Here, come
to the southern tower to watch for them.'
The sisters had worked themselves to the point of eagerness where
propitious moments are disregarded, and both broke out--
'Glenuskie is going to Margaret. We want to go with him!'
'Go! Go to Margaret and leave me!' cried James, the red spot on his
face spreading.
'Oh, Jamie, it is so dull and dreary, and folks are so fierce and rude.'
'That might be when that loon Hepburn had you, but now you have me,

who can take order with them.'
'You cannot do all, Jamie,' persisted Eleanor; 'and we long after that
fair smooth land of peace. Lady Glenuskie would take good care of us
till we came to Margaret.'
'Ay! And 'tis little you heed how it is with me,' exclaimed James,