Can you bear to hear them ?" "If you have found my daughter dead or dying, speak and fear not!" "I have things more terrible than the death of many daughters to tell you!" "Speak and fear not--an it touch the lives of my sons, speak freely.
The mother of the Douglases has learned the Douglas lesson." "Then," said Malise, sinking his head upon his breast, "God help you, lady, your two sons are dead!" "Is David dead also ?" said the Lady of Douglas.
"He is dead," replied Malise.
The lady tottered a little as she stood on the topmost step of the ascent to Thrieve.

One or two of the torch-bearers ran to support her.
But she commanded herself and waved them aside.
"God--He is the God," she said, looking upwards into the black night.
"In one day He has made me a woman solitary and without children.

Sons and daughter He has taken from me.

But He shall not break my heart.
No, not even He.

Stand up, Malise MacKim, and tell me how these things came to pass." And there in the blown reek of torches and the hush of the courtyard of Thrieve Malise told all the tale of the Black Dinner and the fatal morning, of the short shrift and the matchless death, while around him strong men sobbed and lifted up right hands to swear the eternal vengeance.
But alone and erect as a banner staff stood the mother of the dead.
Her eyes were dry, her lips compressed, her nostrils a little distended like those of a war-horse that sniffs the battle from afar.
Outside the castle wall the news spread swiftly, and somewhere in the darkness a voice set up the Celtic keen.
"Bid that woman hold her peace.