the promise to conduct him to the captive King of Scots, as the only
means of saving him from his rapacious kindred.

'Poor lad!' said Harry, gravely.

'Do you know King James, Sir?' asked Malcolm, timidly.

'Know him?' said Harry, turning round to scan the boy with his merry blue
eye. 'I know him--yes; that as far as a poor Welsh knight can know his
Grace of Scotland.'

'And, Sir, will he be good lord to me?'

'Eh! that's as you may take him. I would not be one of yonder Scots
under his hands!'

'Has he learned to hate his own countrymen?' asked Malcolm, in an awe-
stricken voice.

'Hate? I trow he has little to love them for. He is a good fellow
enough, my young lord, when left to himself; but best beware. Lions in a
cage have strange tempers.'

A courier rode up at the moment, and presented some letters, which Sir
Harry at once opened and read, beckoning his brother and Sir James to his
side, while Malcolm rode on in their wake, in a state of dismay and
bewilderment. Nigel and Lord Marmion were together at so great an
interval that he could not fall back on them, nor learn from them who
these brothers were. And there was something in the ironical suppressed
pity with which Harry had spoken of his prospects with the King of Scots,