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 downstairs, the little dog under her arm. A
moment after, she was seen by the breathless Catharine, wrapt in the dey
woman's cloak, and walking composedly across the drawbridge.

"So," said the warder, "you return early tonight, May Bridget? Small
mirth towards in the hall--ha, wench! Sick times are sad times!"

"I have forgotten my tallies," said the ready witted French woman, "and
will return in the skimming of a bowie."

She went onward, avoiding the village of Falkland, and took a footpath
which led through the park. Catharine breathed freely, and blessed God
when she saw her lost in the distance. It was another anxious hour
for Catharine which occurred before the escape of the fugitive was
discovered. This happened so soon as the dey girl, having taken an hour
to perform a task which ten minutes might have accomplished, was about
to return, and discovered that some one had taken away her grey frieze
cloak. A strict search was set on foot; at length the women of the
house remembered the glee maiden, and ventured to suggest her as one not
unlikely to exchange an old cloak for a new one. The warder, strictly
questioned, averred he saw the dey woman depart immediately after
vespers; and on this being contradicted by the party herself, he could
suggest, as the only alternative, that it must needs have been the
devil.

As, however, the glee woman could not be found, the real circumstances
of the case were easily guessed at; and the steward went to inform Sir
John Ramorny and Dwining, who were now scarcely ever separate, of
the escape of one of their female captives. Everything awakens the
suspicions of the guilty. They looked on each other with faces of
dismay, and then went together to the humble apartment of Catharine,
that th