absence of Sir Halbert Glendinning.

But even the charms of this blooming favourite were unable to chase
the recurring apprehensions which arose from her husband's
procrastinated return. Soon after Roland Graeme became a resident at
the castle, a groom, despatched by Sir Halbert, brought tidings that
business still delayed the Knight at the Court of Holyrood. The more
distant period which the messenger had assigned for his master's
arrival at length glided away, summer melted into autumn, and autumn
was about to give place to winter, and yet he came not.




Chapter the Third.


The waning harvest-moon shone broad and bright,
The warder's horn was heard at dead of night,
And while the portals-wide were flung,
With trampling hoofs the rocky pavement rung.
LEYDEN.

"And you, too, would be a soldier, Roland?" said the Lady of Avenel to
her young charge, while, seated on a stone chair at one end of the
battlements, she saw the boy attempt, with a long stick, to mimic the
motions of the warder, as he alternately shouldered, or ported, or
sloped pike.

"Yes, Lady," said the boy,--for he was now familiar, and replied to