ust have been a sea dangerous and troubled, full of risks
and perils. The Queen, we are told, erected houses of shelter on either
side of this angry strait, and established what we should call a line of
passenger boats to take the pilgrims over at the expense of the State.
One wonders how much or how little of State policy might mingle in this
pious act, for no doubt the establishment of an easy and constant means
of communication between the wealthy Lothians and the then centre of
national life must have been of unspeakable use in consolidating a
kingdom still so imperfectly knit together and divided by the formidable
line of the great estuary. It is one drawback of a religious chronicler
that no such motive, large and noble as it might be, is thought of,
since even national advantage counted so much less than the cultivation
of piety. And it is very likely that Margaret thought of nothing else,
and reckoned a prayer at the shrine of the patron saint as far more
important than the intercommunications thus established and the
knowledge of each other thus acquired by the different parts of a
kingdom which still retained the differences of separate nationalities.
A mingled aim, a practical motive, might not have accomplished half so
much; but no doubt among Malcolm's men, his greybeards pondering in
council, or perhaps himself thinking of many things as he protected all
his wife's schemes, there was a dawning perception, along with the
undoubted advantages of piety, of a national use in the quickened
intercourse and securely established communications. If so he would
probably blame himself for a mixed motive by the side of Margaret's pure
and absolute heavenly-mindedness, yet take pleasure in the secondary
unacknowledged good all the same.

Thus their life went on for nearly a quarter of a century in a course of
national development to which everything contributed, even the love of
splendour which Margaret brought with her, and her artistic tastes, and
the rage for decoration and beautiful surroundings which had then begun
to be so strong an element in national progress. She had many children
in the midst of all these labours and public interests, seven sons and
two daughters, whom she brought up most carefully in all the perfection
of her own faith. Three of these sons succeeded one after the other to
the Scottish throne, and proved the efficacy of her teaching by piety as
strong and as liberal as her own. It was in the y