"By the blessed stars of heaven, and the Holy Virgin that rules above them!" exclaimed the friar; "it is the graven image of the captain of fifty whom I slew in battle. I saw it placed in thy bosom, yea I held thee on my knee till that chain of gold was locked about thy neck never to be removed. Thou art indeed the daughter of the fairest and the comeliest among women,--of her whom I loved far above my own life, and for whom I travailled in pain; yea, thou art the child that I nursed and held on my knee, and all the inheritance of thy fathers is thine. Blessed be thou, my daughter! and blessed be they who have preserved thee! Come to my bosom my child, my beloved, my fair one, that I may fall on thy neck, and bless thee, and weep over thee; for my soul rejoiceth that I have found thee." The poet could stand it no longer; he threw himself at the maiden's feet, and embraced them, and wept aloud. Charlie was busied in drawing pictures of swords and cross-bows on the floor with the brazen end of his sheathe, and always giving a loud sob as if his heart would burst. Even Master Michael Scott once drew the back of his hand across his eyes, though no one believed it was ought of sympathy that affected him. "The abbreviation of the name was so natural in the mouths of the people of this land," said the friar, "that I wonder I should never have recognised it, nor yet on the face of my dear child the features of her mother. Hard has been thy lot, and the lot of thy fathers, but blessings may yet remain in store for thee." "I dinna see where they're to come frae," said Charlie, sighing louder than ever. "It wad be the hardest thing I ever kend, if ane sae young, sae bonnie, and sae good, after a' that she has borne, should be prickit up atween the yird and the heaven here, to be hungered to dead, and then eaten wi' the corbies." "Life's sweet to us a'," said Gibbie: "She wad be as little missed as ony that's here, if she _should_ be starved to death wi' hunger." "She shall _not_ be starved to death wi' hunger;" cried Charlie, in a tone of valiant desperation. "Na, na; afore she die o' hunger after a' she has come through, I'll rather cut a limb off my ain body and feed her wi't. An Corbie be spared, I can e'en ride by the warden's side wi' a timmer ane." "God bless you, for a kind heart," cried the poet. "Gin I thought I were to win her mysel," said Tam, "and win away wi' life out o' this luckless place, I wad do a good deal for her; but if I trowed ony o' you were to get her frae me--I'll no tell you how I feel." "Just as a hungry man should feel," said Gibbie; "and as ane wha has starvation afore his een maun feel. It is e'en a sair trial, and often brings me a-mind o' the story of Marion Gib's callant."