restraint, had in them something noble;--assuredly the child was born
of high rank. Such was her conclusion, and she acted upon it
accordingly. The domestics around her, less jealous, or less
scrupulous than Lilias, acted as servants usually do, following the
bias, and flattering, for their own purposes, the humour of the Lady;
and the boy soon took on him those airs of superiority, which the
sight of habitual deference seldom fails to inspire. It seemed, in
truth, as if to command were his natural sphere, so easily did he use
himself to exact and receive compliance with his humours. The
chaplain, indeed, might have interposed to check the air of assumption
which Roland Graeme so readily indulged, and most probably would have
willingly rendered him that favour; but the necessity of adjusting
with his brethren some disputed points of church discipline had
withdrawn him for some time from the castle, and detained him in a
distant part of the kingdom.

Matters stood thus in the castle of Avenel, when a winded bugle sent
its shrill and prolonged notes from the shore of the lake, and was
replied to cheerily by the signal of the warder. The Lady of Avenel
knew the sounds of her husband, and rushed to the window of the
apartment in which she was sitting. A band of about thirty spearmen,
with a pennon displayed before them, winded along the indented shores
of the lake, and approached the causeway. A single horseman rode at
the head of the party, his bright arms catching a glance of the
October sun as he moved steadily along. Even at that distance, the
Lady recognized the lofty plume, bearing the mingled colours of her
own liveries and those of Glendonwyne, blended with the holly-branch;
and the firm seat and dignified demeanour of the rider, joined to the
stately motion of the dark-brown steed, sufficiently announced Halbert
Glendinning.