Those tears were, however, soon dried, for in the fearful grief of her husband she found cause for alarm, which changed the current of her thoughts. "My lord, my dear lord!" she said, "be not thus moved, the children will do well. See! I have dried my woman's tears. They will be well cared for by my good sister; and we shall see them soon again bounding through the hall, we shall hear their gay voices prattling on the stairs." "Never, Winifred, never!" he replied, withdrawing his hands, and looking at her with a sad and fixed countenance; "never! I have banished my children; I have deprived my son of his lawful patrimony; I have now driven him forth to beggary, exile, and dependence. No Earl of Nithsdale will ever inhabit these halls again: I know it, I feel it! The lands I inherited from my forefathers must pass to others. Our castles will be desolate, our name extinct! But this is weakness all. I knew I hazarded all earthly goods when I devoted myself to the interests of my king. Alas! If I could but feel assured that I was truly devoting myself to the interests of my king, _and_ also of my country, I would not pause to think of my fair castle, my goodly lands!" And his eye glanced quickly round the noble apartment, and dwelt for a moment on the smiling prospect from the windows, where the Nith danced along the valley through banks diversified with fields of waving corn, and luxuriant copses, whose deep green contrasted beautifully with the yellow harvest. During this momentary silence the distant sound of the bagpipe came fitfully on the ear, as its wild music cheered the reapers to their toil. "Though," he added, "the descendant of a long line of ancestors loves the halls where those ancestors have dwelt,--though the man loves the spot where he has wandered a child,--though," he continued, "a patriot loves the soil which gave him birth; yet," and his voice strengthened, his eye flashed upwards,--"gladly, willingly, gallantly, would I resign them all, were I certain that I indeed strove to secure my country's good, when I seek the restoration of my king." Neither the countess nor her lord had ever contemplated the possibility of their deserting the Jacobite party; but they viewed the probable result of the enterprise, in which both deemed it equally indispensable to join, with very different eyes. Even the success of his schemes did not to him hold out a prospect of certain good. Though a strict Catholic, he was no bigot; and he could not blind himself to the inexpediency of giving a Catholic king to a Protestant people.