. Select our attendants,
and tell each man who either goes with us or remains behind that he who
prates dies."

In a few minutes the Douglas was on horseback, with the followers
selected to attend his person. Expresses were sent to his daughter, the
widowed Duchess of Rothsay, directing her to take her course to Perth,
by the shores of Lochleven, without approaching Falkland, and committing
to her charge Catharine Glover and the glee woman, as persons whose
safety he tendered.

As they rode through the forest, they looked back, and beheld the three
bodies hanging, like specks darkening the walls of the old castle.

"The hand is punished," said Douglas, "but who shall arraign the head by
whose direction the act was done?"

"You mean the Duke of Albany?" said Balveny.

"I do, kinsman; and were I to listen to the dictates of my heart, I
would charge him with the deed, which I am certain he has authorised.
But there is no proof of it beyond strong suspicion, and Albany has
attached to himself the numerous friends of the house of Stuart, to
whom, indeed, the imbecility of the King and the ill regulated habits
of Rothsay left no other choice of a leader. Were I, therefore, to break
the bond which I have so lately formed with Albany, the consequence
must be civil war, an event ruinous to poor Scotland while threatened
by invasion from the activity of the Percy, backed by the treachery
of March. No, Balveny, the punishment of Albany must rest with Heaven,
which, in its own good time, will execute judgment on him and on his
house."

CHAPTER XXXIII.

The hour is nigh: now hearts beat high;
Each sword is sharpen'd well;
And who dares die, who stoops to fly,
Tomorrow's light shall tell.

Sir Edwald.

We are now to recall to our reader's recollection, that Simon Glover and
his fair daughter had been hurried from their residence without having
time to announce to Henry Smith either their departure or the alarming
cause of it. When, therefore, the lover appeared in Curfew Street, on
the morning of their flight, instead of the hearty welcome of the honest
burgher, and the April reception, half joy half censure, which he had
been promised on the part of his lovely daughter, he received only the
astounding intelligence, that her father and she had set off early, on
the summons of a stranger, who had kept himself carefully muffled from
observation. To this, Dorothy, whose talents for forestallin