Promising to return at the same hour on the second night following, James kissed his beautiful princess and her infant daughter, wrapped his scarlet mantle about him, and raising the arras, slipped down the secret stair, the concealed door of which Lady Margaret immediately secured. "She hath spoken truly," muttered the prince, as he turned the buckle of his belt behind him, brought the hilt of his sword round, and looked cautiously up and down the dark, silent, and deserted street for the interloper by whom he had been formerly followed. "She hath, indeed, spoken truly. A strife approaches that will drench the land in blood--a strife which even I cannot avert. This secret marriage may destroy us both. Dear, dear Margaret! Like my father, a fatality pursues me, and those who could guide us both may be the innocent cause of undoing us all." He hurried along the narrow and quaint old street, and, favoured by his disguise and the watch-word, passed the sentinels, and reached the Palace of St. Margaret unknown and undiscovered. The unfortunate relationship which rendered a papal dispensation necessary in those days, was caused by Rothesay's descent from Annabella Drummond, queen of Robert III., who was a daughter of Margaret's great-great-grandsire, Sir John Drummond of that ilk. In her own time, this queen had been justly celebrated for her loveliness; for, as Cambden says, "the women of the family of Drummond, for charming beauty and complexion, are beyond all others." Other writers amply corroborate this, and add, that three girls more beautiful than Euphemia, Sybilla, and Margaret Drummond had never graced the court of a Scottish king. CHAPTER VIII. THE FISHERMAN OF BROUGHTY. Oh weel may the boatie row, And better may she speed; And weel may the boatie row, That wins the bairns' bread. I cuist my net in Largo bay, And fishes I caught nine; There's three to fry, and three to broil, And three to bait the line. _Scots Song._