Wyseby

OF THE FIRST IRVINGS. 133
>cast a look after those who yesterday sunk into the
invisible. On the mournfully stern countenances of
the bereaved clansmen gleams high exultation as
they gaze upon the swelling forms of their youthful
chiefs, excited as they are by the great occasion,
and by the first consciousness of power. There are
proud dames in that assembly too, and maidens,
lovely as any the sun in his wide course looks down
upon. But where is Catharine Irving — why is she
not there ? Ah ! she sits lonely in the halls of
Wyseby ; and her soul lightens and darkens in a
joyous sadness, even as the face of a mountain lake,
when sun-lit clouds are sailing on high. In the late
battle one arm turned the fortunes of the day, and
her heart told her whose that arm was. And though
she wished — oh, how she wished ! — to gaze upon his
noble brow again as in old days, and to hear the
music of his deep rich voice, and to listen to his
mighty thoughts, as in high moods he poured them
forth ; yet she could not meet him there in that as-
sembly. No ! so she sat, a lone watcher, in the balls
of Wyseby.
And why, in Lochmaben's grey castle, are the
strength and beauty of the Border assembled ? They
are gathered there around one at whose name every
heart in broad Scotland leaps with joy, or sinks
with guilty fear — around the idomitable soldier, the
irresistible king, the heroic man — the Bruce. High
in the centre of that throng he sits. Early struggles
— the cares of rule — and time — have left their traces
on the high brow of the victorious sovereign. His
eye is stern and cold as when Irving first saw him ;
but his hair, which then waved in rich luxuriance, is
now thin and sprinkled with grey, and his muscular
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