



Produced by Sandra Laythorpe





TWO PENNILESS PRINCESSES

By Charlotte M. Yonge




CHAPTER 1. DUNBAR


     ''Twas on a night, an evening bright
        When the dew began to fa',
      Lady Margaret was walking up and down,
        Looking over her castle wa'.'


The battlements of a castle were, in disturbed times, the only
recreation-ground of the ladies and play-place of the young people.
Dunbar Castle, standing on steep rocks above the North Sea, was not
only inaccessible on that side, but from its donjon tower commanded a
magnificent view, both of the expanse of waves, taking purple tints from
the shadows of the clouds, with here and there a sail fleeting before
the wind, and of the rugged headlands of the coast, point beyond point,
the nearer distinct, and showing the green summits, and below, the
tossing waves breaking white against the dark rocks, and the distance
becoming more and more hazy, in spite of the bright sun which made a
broken path of glory along the tossing, white-crested waters.

The wind was a keen north-east breeze, and might have been thought too
severe by any but the 'hardy, bold, and wild' children who were merrily
playing on the top of the donjon tower, round the staff whence fluttered
the double treasured banner with 'the ruddy lion ramped in gold'
denoting the presence of the King.

Three little boys, almost babies, and a little girl not much older, were
presided over by a small elder sister, who held the youngest in her lap,
and tried to amuse him with caresses and rhymes, so as to prevent his
interference with the castle-building of the others, with their small
hoard of pebbles and mussel and cockle shells.

Another maiden, the wind tossing her long chestnut-locks, uncovered, but
tied with the Scottish snood, sat on the battlement, gazing far out over
the waters, with eyes of the same tint as the hair. Even the sea-breeze
failed to give more than a slight touch of colour to her somewhat
freckled complexion; and the limbs that rested in a careless attitude on
the stone bench were long and languid, though with years and favourable
circumstances there might be a development of beauty and dignity. Her
lips were crooning at intervals a mournful old Scottish tune, sometimes
only humming, sometimes uttering its melancholy burthen, and she now and
then touched a small harp that stood by her side on the seat.

She did not turn round when a step approached, till a hand was laid on
her shoulder, when she started, and looked up into the face of another
girl, on a smaller scale, with a complexion of the lily-and-rose kind,
fair hair under her hood, with a hawk upon her wrist, and blue eyes
dancing at the surprise of her sister.

'Eleanor in a creel, as usual!' she cried.

'I thought it was only one of the bairns,' was the answer.

'They might coup over the walls for aught thou seest,' returned the
new-comer. 'If it were not for little Mary what would become of the poor
weans?'

'What will become of any of us?' said Eleanor. 'I was gazing out over
the sea and wishing we could drift away upon it to some land of rest.'

'The Glenuskie folk are going to try another land,' said Jean. 'I was
in the bailey-court even now playing at ball with Jamie when in comes a
lay-brother, with a letter from Sir Patrick to say that he is coming
the night to crave permission from Jamie to go with his wife to France.
Annis, as you know, is betrothed to the son of his French friends,
Malcolm is to study at the Paris University, and Davie to be in the
Scottish Guards to learn chivalry like his father. And the Leddy of
Glenuskie--our Cousin Lilian--is going with them.'

'And she will see Margaret,' said Eleanor. 'Meg the dearie! Dost
remember Meg, Jeanie?'

'Well, well do I remember her, and how she used to let us nestle in her
lap and sing to us. She sang like thee, Elleen, and was as mother-like
as Mary is to the weans, but she was much blithesomer--at least before
our father was slain.'

'Sweetest Meg! My whole heart leaps after her,' cried Eleanor, with a
fervent gesture.

'I loved her better than Isabel, though she was not so bonnie,' said
Jean.

'Jeanie, Jeanie,' cried Eleanor, turning round with a vehemence
strangely contrasting with her previous language, 'wherefore should we
not go with Glenuskie to be with Meg at Bourges?'

Jeanie opened her blue eyes wide.

'Go to the French King's Court?' she said.

'To the land of chivalry and song,' exclaimed Eleanor, 'where they have
courts of love and poetry, and tilts and tourneys and minstrelsy, and
the sun shines as it never does in this cold bleak north; and above all
there is Margaret, dear tender Margaret, almost a queen, as a queen she
will be one day. Oh! I almost feel her embrace.'

'It might be well,' said Jean, in the matter-of-fact tone of a practical
young lady;'mewed up in these dismal castles, we shall never get
princely husbands like our sisters. I might be Queen of Beauty, I doubt
me whether you are fair enough, Eleanor.'

'Oh, that is not what I think of,' said Eleanor. 'It is to see our own
Margaret, and to see and hear the minstrel knights, instead of the rude
savages here, scarce one of whom knows what knighthood means!'

'Ay, and they will lay hands on us and wed us one of these days,'
returned Jean, 'unless we vow ourselves as nuns, and I have no mind for
that.'

'Nor would a convent always guard us,' said Eleanor; 'these reivers
do not stick at sanctuary. Now in that happy land ladies meet with
courtesy, and there is a minstrel king like our father, Rene is his
name, uncle to Margaret's husband. Oh! it would be a very paradise.'

'Let us go, let us go!' exclaimed Jean.

'Go!' said Mary, who had drawn nearer to them while they spoke. 'Whither
did ye say?'

'To France--to sister Margaret and peace and sunshine,' said Eleanor.

'Eh!' said the girl, a pale fair child of twelve; 'and what would poor
Jamie and the weans do, wanting their titties?'

'Ye are but a bairn, Mary,' was Jean's answer. 'We shall do better for
Jamie by wedding some great lords in the far country than by waiting
here at home.'

'And James will soon have a queen of his own to guide him,' added
Eleanor.

'I'll no quit Jamie or the weans,' said little Mary resolutely,
turning back as the three-year-old boy elicited a squall from the
eighteen-months one.

'Johnnie! Johnnie! what gars ye tak' away wee Andie's claw? Here, my
mannie.'

And she was kneeling on the leads, making peace over the precious crab's
claw, which, with a few cockles and mussels, was the choicest toy of
these forlorn young Stewarts; for Stewarts they all were