Two Penniless Princesses | Page 7

'when
you are gone to your daffing and singing and dancing--with me that
have saved you from that reiver Hepburn.'
'Jamie, dear, I'll never quit ye,' said little Mary's gentle voice.
He laughed.
'You are a leal faithful little lady, Mary; but you are no good as yet,
when Angus is speiring for my sister for his heir.'
'And do you trow,' said Jean hotly, 'that when one sister is to be a queen,
and the other is next thing to it, we are going to put up with a
raw-boned, red-haired, unmannerly Scots earl?'
'And do you forget who is King of Scotland, ye proud peat?' her brother
cried in return.
'A braw sort of king,' returned Jean, 'who could not hinder his mother
and sisters from being stolen by an outlaw.'
The pride and hot temper of the Beauforts had descended to both
brother and sister, and James lifted his hand with 'Dare to say that
again'; and Jean was beginning 'I dare,' when little Annaple opportunely
called, 'There's a plump of spears coming over the hill.'
There was an instant rush to watch them, James saying--
'The Drummond banner! Ye shall see how Glenuskie mocks at this
same fine fancy of yours'; and he ran downstairs at no kingly pace,
letting the heavy nail-studded door bang after him.
'He will never let us go,' sighed Jean.
'You worked him into one of his tempers,' returned Eleanor. 'You
should have broached it to him more by degrees.'
'And lost the chance of going with Sir Patie and his wife, and got
plighted to the red-haired Master of Angus--never see sweet Meg and
her braw court, and the tilts and tourneys, but live among murderous
caitiffs and reivers all my days,' sobbed Jean.
'I would not be such a fule body as to give in for a hasty word or two,
specially of Jamie's,' said Eleanor composedly.
'And gin ye bide here,' added gentle Mary, 'we shall be all together, and
you will have Jamie and the bairnies.'

'Fine consolation,' muttered Jean.
'Eh well,' said Eleanor, we must go down and meet them.'
'This fashion!' exclaimed Jean. 'Look at your hair, Ellie-- blown wild
about your ears like a daft woman's, and your kirtle all over mortar and
smut. My certie, you would be a bonnie lady to be Queen of Love and
Beauty at a jousting-match.'
'You are no better, Jeanie,' responded Eleanor.
'That I ken full well, but I'd be shamed to show myself to knights and
lairds that gate. And see Mary and all the lave have their hands as black
as a caird's.'
'Come and let Andie's Mary wash them,' said that little personage,
picking up fat Andrew in her arms, while he retained his beloved crab's
claw. 'Jeanie, would you carry Johnnie, he's not sure-footed, over the
stair? Annaple, take Lorn's hand over the kittle turning.'
One chamber was allotted to the entire party and their single nurse.
Being far up in the tower, it ventured to have two windows in the
massive walls, so thick that five-and-twenty steps from the floor were
needed to reach the narrow slips of glass in a frame that could be
removed at will, either to admit the air or to be exchanged for solid
wooden shutters to exclude storms by sea or arrows and bolts by land.
The lower part of the walls was hung with very grim old tapestry, on
which Holofernes' head, going into its bag, could just be detected; there
were two great solid box-beds, two more pallets rolled up for the day, a
chest or two, a rude table, a cross-legged chair, a few stools, and some
deer and seal skins spread on the floor completed the furniture of this
ladies' bower. There was, unusual luxury, a chimney with a hearth and
peat fire, and a cauldron on it, with a silver and a copper basin beside it
for washing purposes, never discarded by poor Queen Joanna and her
old English nurse Ankaret, who had remained beside her through all the
troubles of the stormy and barbarous country, and, though crippled by a
fall and racked with rheumatism, was the chief comfort of the young
children. She crouched at the hearth with her spinning and her beads,
and exclaimed at the tossed hair and soiled hands and faces of her
charges.
Mary brought the little ones to her to be set to rights, and the elder girls
did their best with their toilette. Princesses as they were, the ruddy
golden tresses of Eleanor and the flaxen locks of Jean and Mary were

the only ornaments that they could boast of as their own; and though
there were silken and embroidered garments of their mother's in one of
the chests, their mourning forbade the use of