n, meanwhile, who had caught sympathetically her fears,
and could not divine the cause of their mother's vigil by the window in
a thunder storm, had renounced sleep; and, disregarding her efforts to
restrain them, must see her at intervals, and question her again and
again; and even from their sleeping apartment they sent their
exclamations of fear, and aggravated, by their sorrows and terror, the
misery of their mother.

In this condition Marjory remained for another hour. There was no stir
in the tower, where a female domestic or two lay, or slipped about,
under the weight of a fear, the cause of which had not been explained to
them. The silence internally, broken at times by the cries of the
restless children, formed a strange and awe-inspiring contrast to the
turmoil without, where darkness and the storm still held sway over the
earth. Oppressed by the sight of the black heavens, she yet trembled to
look for the first glimpse of dawn, which might be soon expected to be
seen struggling through the vapours of the storm. Light would bring the
king and the executioner; and she prayed that she might have an
opportunity of seeing her husband before the arrival of the royal
cavalcade, that she might fall on her knees, and implore his instant
flight into England; but her ears caught no sounds in the direction of
Tushielaw, save the thunder and the rain, and, at intervals, the scream
of the drenched owl or frightened hawk, or the wheep of the restless
lapwing, driven from the morass by the overwhelming torrent. Then came
the cry again, of "Mother, mother!" from her sleepless children,
responded to by her own, "Hush, hush, my darlings! your father cometh!"
when her pained ear sought again the direction of Peebles, and she
trembled as her fancy suggested the sound of hoof or horn.

Thus another hour passed, and her racked feelings were still uncheered
by a glimpse of hope. The strength of her soul seemed to have passed
into the physical organs of the eye and ear; and every change, from
darkness or silence, produced exacerbations of her fear, and painful
apprehension. The faint shade of light in the eastern heavens, which
gave tokens of the approaching dawn, might be a precursor of the king
and his retinue; and as her eye fell upon it, she listened again for the
coming tread. A very faint sound was now heard, and it was too evident
that it came not from Tushielaw; it was from the direction of Peebles,
and it sounded as if it w