e royal wanderers wherever they pitched their tent, and
by degrees join in the adventurous excursions of his young companions to
supply them with provender, for on success in hunting entirely depended
their subsistence.

It was in itself a strange romance, the life they led. Frequently the
blue sky was their only covering, the purple heath their only bed; nor
would the king fare better than his followers. Eagerly, indeed, the
young men ever exerted themselves to form tents or booths of brushwood,
branches of trees, curiously and tastefully interwoven with the wild
flowers that so luxuriantly adorned the rocks, for the accommodation of
the faithful companions who preferred this precarious existence with
them, to comfort, safety, and luxury in a foreign land. Nature, indeed,
lavishly supplied them with beautiful materials, and where the will was
good, exertion proved but a new enjoyment. Couches and cushions of the
softest moss formed alike seats and places of repose; by degrees almost
a village of these primitive dwellings would start into being, in the
centre of some wild rocks, which formed natural barriers around them,
watered, perhaps, by some pleasant brook rippling and gushing by in
wild, yet soothing music, gemmed by its varied flowers.

Here would be the rendezvous for some few weeks; here would Margaret and
her companions rest a while from their fatiguing wanderings; and could
they have thought but of the present, they would have been completely
happy. Here would their faithful knights return laden with the spoils of
the chase, or with some gay tale of danger dared, encountered, and
conquered; here would the song send its full tone amid the responding
echoes. The harp and muse of Nigel gave a refinement and delicacy to
these meetings, marking them, indeed, the days of chivalry and poetry.
Even Edward Bruce, the stern, harsh, dark, passioned warrior, even he
felt the magic of the hour, and now that the courage of Nigel had been
proved, gave willing ear, and would be among the first to bid him wake
his harp, and soothe the troubled visions of the hour; and Robert, who
saw so much of his own soul reflected in his young brother, mingled as
it was with yet more impassioned fervor, more beautiful, more endearing
qualities, for Nigel had needed not trial to purify his soul, and mark
him out a patriot. Robert, in very truth, loved him, and often would
share with him his midnight couch, his nightly watchings, that he mig