"Prisoners!" and she seemed to awake as from a trance. "Prisoners to King George! then rebels! traitors! Fool that I have been! and my thought never glanced towards this! Oh! to whom can I apply for advice or for assistance? Alas, alas! what can a poor weak helpless woman do? If I had wings to fly to my lord, then he would tell me how I might assist him;--then at least I should be near to soothe and to support him! But here, alone, and helpless," she added, wringing her hands, "what can I hope? what can I effect?--But you know more, Amy; you can tell me more?" "No more, madam, than that the Scots were the last to come to terms and to surrender." "And they surrendered! yielded themselves up to the Whigs! Oh, my dear, dear lord, what must thy noble spirit have endured ere it was bowed to this! How must thy counsels have been scorned, thy hopes blasted, thy heart crushed! I know thy lofty nature well, and truly my woman's soul almost refuses itself to picture what thine must have undergone!" Amy stood for some momenta bewildered, and unable to offer consolations which she felt must be unavailing. Then, resuming her self-possession, she urged: "Think, madam, how much worse it might have been! you forget that my lord is safe in person." "But, Amy, what he must have suffered in mind! And what are bodily sufferings to the tortures such a mind is capable of enduring!" "There is one thing, my lady, for which we cannot be too grateful. He is now safe from the dangers of battle: think how you felt when we were talking of young Clanronald, so fresh, so blooming on the bloody sod!" "True, true!" and she looked up for a moment. "But--" and she lowered her voice--"there are other and more inevitable perils than those which are met with in battle. If, indeed, the usurper keep the throne,--if the new dynasty prevail--then loyalty is treason, and treason, treason, Amy!--Even King James spared not his own nephew; can we expect more mercy in the soul of a stranger than in one of our own royal blood?--Oh Heaven, be pitiful!" "Nay, madam, but the Duke of Monmouth was the usurper himself. This case is quite different! And then there are so many of them. Mr. Forster, and the Earl of Derwentwater and his brother, and the Lords Wintoun, Carnwarth, Kenmure, Nairne, and many, many more of noble and gentle blood. King George, if indeed he is to be our king, must show mercy. He could not have the heart----" Amy dared not finish the sentence: she could not have uttered, her lady could not have listened to, the termination their imaginations but too well supplied. Lady Nithsdale bowed her head in silence, and Amy feared to break in upon the sad solemnity of her thoughts. After a pause, the countess slowly rose: "I will to my closet, Amy, and there tell my beads, till I have regained composure enough to think. But fail not to let me know should farther intelligence reach the castle."