Pressed by their hostess, and nothing loth themselves, the soldiers now sat down to the well-spread board which the former's hospitality had prepared for them, and ate heartily; those first served giving place to their comrades, until the whole had partaken of the widow's good cheer. This done, the soldiers, though not without apologies for the rudeness which their duty imposed on them, informed Margaret Grahame that the purpose of their visit was to search her house for a certain important personage--not naming him--who, they had information, had been seen in that neighbourhood in the course of the day. Having given her this intimation, the soldiers, attended by Margaret herself, proceeded to search the house, but in a temper so mollified by the kind treatment they had received, that they went through the process more as a matter of form than duty. On completing their brief and cursory search, the troopers, after thanking their hostess for her hospitality, remounted their horses, and departed. It was not for some time after they were gone, that Margaret Grahame ventured to seek the hiding-place of her first guest of the evening. There were two reasons for this delay. The first was to ensure the perfect safety of the latter, by allowing her late visiters to get to a secure distance; the other was one of a less definite and more perplexing nature. From some expressions which had dropped from the troopers in the course of their search, she had now no doubt that her concealed guest was no other than Robert Bruce. It was under this impression, then, and under the feeling of reverential awe it inspired, that Margaret Grahame at length went to intimate to her concealed guest that the troopers were gone, and that he might now come forth from his hiding-place. On the latter's stepping from his concealment, Margaret flung herself on her knees, and calling him her King, implored his pardon for the homely and familiar manner in which, in ignorance of his quality, she had treated him. "So, my good dame," replied Bruce, smiling--for it was indeed he--and taking his hostess kindly by the hand, and raising her from her humble position, "so you have discovered me? These troopers have blabbed, I fancy. Well, my secret could not be in safer keeping, I feel assured, than in thine, my kind hostess. It is even so. I _am_ Robert Bruce, and none other." Overcome by the various and tumultuous feelings which the incident, altogether, was so well calculated to excite, Margaret Grahame burst into tears, and, raising the corner of her apron to her eyes, stood thus for some seconds without uttering a word. Bruce, affected, even to the starting of a tear, took his hostess again by the hand, and, not without very evident emotion, said--"Come, my good dame, why those tears?"