captivity well-nigh sweet. And so farewell,
dear brother. I thank you for the granting to me of this sacred charge.'

And so, with hands clasped and wrung together, with tears raining from
James's eyes, and a dry settled melancholy more sad than tears on John's
countenance, the two friends parted, never again to meet; each to run a
course true, brave, and short--extinguished the one in bitter grief, the
other in blood.

On All Saints' Day, while James stood with Humfrey of Gloucester at the
head of the grave at Westminster, where Henry's earthly form was laid to
rest amid the kings his fathers, amid the wail of a people as sorrowful
as if they knew all the woes that were to ensue, Bedford was in like
manner standing over a grave at the Royal Abbey of St. Denis. He, the
victor's brother, represented all the princely kindred of Charles VI. of
France, and, with his heart at Westminster, filled the chief mourner's
place over the king who had pined to death for his conqueror.

The same infant was proclaimed king over each grave--heir to France and
England, to Valois and Lancaster. Poor child, his real heirloom was the
insanity of the one and the doom of the other! Well for him that there
was within him that holy innocence that made his life a martyrdom!

CHAPTER XVI: THE CAGE OPEN

More than a year had passed, and it was March when Malcolm was descending
the stone stair that leads so picturesquely beneath the archway of its
tower up to the hall of the college of St. Mary Winton, then _really_ New
College. He had been residing there with Dr. Bennet, associating with
the young members of the foundation educated at Winchester, and studying
with all the freshness of a recent institution. It had been a very happy
time for him, within the gray stone walls that pleasantly recalled
Coldingham, though without Coldingham's defensive aspect, and with ample
food for the mind, which had again returned to its natural state of
inquiring reflection and ardour for knowledge.

Daily Malcolm woke early, attended Matins and Mass in the chapel, studied
grammar and logic, mastered difficult passages in the Fathers, or copied
out portions for himself in the chamber which he as a gentleman commoner,
as we should call him, possessed, instead of living in a common dormitory
with the other scholars. Or in the open cloister he listened and took
notes of the lectures of the fellows and tutors of the college, and
seated on a bench or