rienced management
of Dame Elspie, as the sisters called her more and more, she was very
weak and sadly depressed. Sometimes she wept and declared she should die
in these dismal walls, like her mother at Dunbar, and never see Jamie
and Mary again; sometimes she blamed Elleen for having put this mad
scheme into her head; sometimes she fretted for her cousins Lilias and
Annis of Glenuskie, and was sure it was all Elleen's fault for having
let themselves be separated from Sir Patrick; while at others she
declared the Drummonds faithless and disloyal for having gone after
their own affairs and left the only true and leal heart to die for
her; and then came fresh floods of tears, though sometimes, as she
passionately caressed Skywing, she declared the hawk to be the only
faithful creature in existence.

Baron Rudiger was evidently very uneasy about her; Barbe reported how
gloomy and miserable he was, and how he relieved his feelings by beating
the unfortunate man who had been leading the horse, and in a wiser
manner by seeking fish in the torrent and birds on the hills for
her refreshment, and even helping Trudchen to gather the mountain
strawberries for her. This was, however, so far from a recommendation to
Jean, that after the first Barbe gave it to be understood that all were
Trudchen's providing.

They suspected that Barbe nattered and soothed 'her boy,' as she termed
him, with hopes, but they owed much to the species of authority with
which she kept him from forcing himself upon them. Eleanor sometimes
tried to soothe her sister, and while away the time with her harp. The
Scotch songs were a great delight to Dame Elspie, but they made Jean
weep in her weakness, and Elleen's great resource was King Rene's
parting gift of the tales of Huon de Bourdeaux, with its wonderful
chivalrous adventures, and the appearances of the dwarf Oberon; and she
greatly enjoyed the idea of the pleasure it would give Jamie--if ever
she should see Jamie again; and she wondered, too, whether the Duke of
the Tirol knew the story--which even at some moments amused Jean.

There was a stair above their chamber, likewise in the thickness of
the wall, which Barbe told them they might safely explore, and
thence Eleanor discovered that the castle was one of the small but
regularly-built fortresses not uncommon on the summit of hills. It was
an octagon--as complete as the ground would permit--with a huge wall and
a tower at each angle. One face, tha