ing unable so
completely to divest herself of all feeling towards the father of her
child, as to make him an object of aversion to his son. She had long
told him his real name, and urged him to demand from his father an
acknowledgment of his being heir to the proud barony of the Bruce. His
likeness to herself was so strong, that she knew it must carry
conviction to his father; but to make his identity still more certain,
she furnished him with certain jewels and papers, none but herself could
produce. She had done this in the presence of two faithful witnesses,
the father and brother of her son's betrothed bride, high lords of
Normandy, the former of which made it a condition annexed to his consent
to the marriage, that as soon as possible afterwards he should urge and
claim his rights. Sir Walter, of course, willingly complied; they were
married by the name of Brus, and their child so baptized. A war, which
retained Sir Walter in arms with his sovereign, prevented his seeking
Scotland till his boy was a year old, and then for his sake, far more
than for his own, the young father determined on asserting his
birthright, his child should not be nameless, as he had been; but to
spare his unknown parent all public mortification, he joined the martial
games without any cognizance or bearing on his shield.

"Terrible were the ravings in which the baron alluded to the interview
he had had with his murdered child; the angelic mildness and generosity
of the youthful warrior; that, amid all his firmness never to depart
from his claim--as it was not alone himself but his child he would
irreparably injure--he never wavered in his respectful deference to his
parent. He quitted the court in the belief that the baron sought
Kildrummie to collect the necessary papers for substantiating his claim;
but ere he died, it appeared his eyes were opened. The fierce passions
of the baron had been too long restrained in the last interview; they
burst even his politic control, and he had flung the papers received
from, the hand of his too-confiding son on the blazing hearth, and with
dreadful oaths swore that if he would not instantly retract his claim,
and bind himself by the most sacred promise never to breathe the foul
tale again, death should be its silent keeper. He would not bring his
own head low, and avow that he had dishonored a scion of the
blood-royal.

"Appalled far more at the dark, fiendish passions he beheld than the
threat held