‘Oh, Jamie, to speak so lightly of parting!’ sighed Eleanor.
‘Come--no fule greeting, now you have your will,’ hastily said James, who could hardly bear it himself.
‘Our gear!’ faltered Jeanie, with consternation at their ill-furnished wardrobes.
‘For that,’ said the Bishop, ‘you must leave the supply till you are over the Border, when the Lady Glenuskie will see to your appearing as nigh as may be as befits the daughters of Scotland among your English kin.’
‘But we have not a mark between us,’ said Jean, ‘and all my mother’s jewels are pledged to the Lombards.’
‘There are moneys falling due to the Crown,’ said the Bishop, ‘and I can advance enow to Sir Patrick to provide the gear and horses.’
‘And my gude wife’s royal kin are my guests till they win to their sister,’ added Sir Patrick.
And so it was settled. It was an evening of bustle and a night of wakefulness. There were floods of tears poured out by and over sweet little Mary and good old Ankaret, not to speak of those which James scorned to shed. Had a sudden stop been put to the journey, perhaps, Eleanor would have been relieved but Jean sorely disappointed.
It was further decided that Father Romuald should accompany the party, both to assist in negotiations with Henry VI. and Cardinal Beaufort, and to avail himself of the opportunity of returning to his native land, fa north, and to show cause to the Pope for erecting St. Andrews into an archiepiscopal see, instead of leaving Scotland under the primacy of York.
Hawk and harp were all the properties the princesses-errant took with them; but Jean, as her old nurse sometimes declared, loved Skywing better than all the weans, and Elleen’s small travelling-harp was all that she owned of her father’s--except the spirit that loved it.
‘I bowed my pride, A horse-boy in his train to ride.’--SCOTT.
The Lady of Glenuskie, as she was commonly called, was a near kinswoman of the Royal House, Lilias Stewart, a grand-daughter of King Robert II., and thus first cousin to the late King. Her brother, Malcolm Stewart, had resigned to her the little barony of Glenuskie upon his embracing the life of a priest, and her becoming the wife of Sir Patrick Drummond, the son of his former guardian.