alcolm's exit in a secular dress among his escort, as one
of the many unobserved loungers, Lilias should go with him in very early
morning in the bachelor's gown, which he would place in a corner of a
dark passage, where she could find it. Then if Malcolm and she turned
aside from his escort, as the pursuit as soon as her evasion was
discovered would be immediately directed on himself, they would have the
more time for escape.

It was a complicated plan, but there was this recommendation, that
Malcolm need not lose sight of his sister. Clerk as he was, young
Kennedy could not ride without an escort, and among his followers he
could place Malcolm. Accordingly at supper he announced his desire to
leave Doune at dawn next morning, and was, as a matter of course,
courteously pressed to remain. Malcolm in the meantime eluded
observation as much as possible while watching his sister, who, in spite
of all her efforts, was pale and red by turns, never durst glance towards
him, and trembled whenever any one went near him.

The ladies at length swept out of the hall, and Robert and Alexander
called for more wine for a rere-supper to drink to James's good journey;
but Kennedy tore himself from their hospitable violence, and again he and
Malcolm were alone, spending a night of anxiety and consultation.

Morning came; Malcolm arrayed himself in a somewhat worn dress of
Kennedy's, with the belt and dirk he had carried under his scholar's garb
now without, and a steel cap that his cousin had procured for him on his
head. With a parcel in his arms of Kennedy's gear, he might pass for a
servant sent from home to meet him; and so soon as this disguise was
complete, Kennedy opened the door. On the turret stair stood a hooded
black figure, that started as the door opened.

Malcolm's heart might well seem to leap to his lips, but both brother and
sister felt the tension of nerve that caution required too much to give
way for a moment.

Kennedy whispered, 'Your license, fair Cousin,' and passed on with the
free step of lordly birth, while a few paces behind the seeming scholar
humbly followed, and Malcolm, putting on his soldier's tread and the
careless free-and-easy bearing he had affected before Meaux, brought up
the rear with Master Kennedy's mails.

As they anticipated, the household was not troubling itself to rise to
see the priest off. Not that this made the coast clear, for the floor of
the hall was cumbered with snoring