But
they closed not their eyes without praying for the sweet repose of
their benefactor. And he found it; not in sleep, but in that peace of
heart which the world cannot give.
Chapter XLVI.
Lammington.
Day succeeded day in the execution of these beneficial designs. When
fulfilled, the royal halls of Lochmaben did not long detain him who
knew no satisfaction but when going about doing good. While he was
thus employed, raising with the quickness of magic, by the hands of his
soldiers, the lately ruined hamlets into well-built villages-while the
gray smoke curled from a thousand russet cottages which now spotted the
sides of the snow-clad hills-while all the lowlands, whithersoever he
directed his steps, breathed of comfort and abundance-he felt like the
father of a large family, in the midst of a happy and vast home, where
every eye turned on him with reverence, every lip with gratitude.
He had hardly gone the circuit of these now cheerful valleys, when an
embassy from England, which had first touched at Lochmaben, overtook
him at the Tower of Lammington. The ambassadors were Edmund, Earl of
Arundel (a nobleman who had married the only sister of De Warenne), and
Anthony Beck, Bishop of Durham.
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