u shall find generous
protectors.--Oh, while this is the case, do not resolve so rashly to
abandon the means of liberty, the best gift that Heaven gives!--Oh, well
sang a poet of my own land--

"Ah, freedom is a noble thing--
Freedom makes men to have liking--
Freedom the zest to pleasure gives--
He lives at ease who freely lives.
Grief, sickness, poortith [poverty], want, are all
Summ'd up within the name of thrall."

[from Barbour's Bruce]

She listened with a melancholy smile to her guide's tirade in praise of
liberty, and then answered, after a moment's pause. "Freedom is for man
alone--woman must ever seek a protector, since nature made her incapable
to defend herself. And where am I to find one?--In that voluptuary
Edward of England--in the inebriated Wenceslaus of Germany--in
Scotland?--Ah, Durward, were I your sister, and could you promise me
shelter in some of those mountain glens which you love to describe
where, for charity, or for the few jewels I have preserved, I might lead
an unharrassed life, and forget the lot I was born to--could you promise
me the protection of some honoured matron of the land--of some baron
whose heart was as true as his sword--that were indeed a prospect, for
which it were worth the risk of farther censure to wander farther and
wider."

There was a faltering tenderness of voice with which the Countess
Isabelle made this admission that at once filled Quentin with a
sensation of joy, and cut him to the very heart. He hesitated a moment
ere he made an answer, hastily reviewing in his mind the possibility
there might be that he could procure her shelter in Scotland, but the
melancholy truth rushed on him that it would be alike base and cruel
to point out to her a course which he had not the most distant power or
means to render safe.

"Lady," he said at last, "I should act foully against my honour and oath
of chivalry, did I suffer you to ground any plan upon the thoughts that
I have the power in Scotland to afford you other protection than that
of the poor arm which is now by your side. I scarce know that my blood
flows in the veins of an individual who now lives in my native land. The
Knight of Innerquharity stormed our Castle at midnight, and cut off all
that belonged to my name. Were I again in Scotland, our feudal enemies
are numerous and powerful, I single and weak, and even had the King a
desire to do me justice, he dared not, for th