A little water, only bring me a little water, and he will speedily recover." All she desired was done, the boy was tenderly raised and brought within the circle of her guards, and laid on the ground at her feet.

She knelt down beside him, chafed his cold hands within her own, and moistened his lips and brow with water.

After a while his scattered senses returned, he started up in a sitting posture, and gazed in wild inquiry around him, uttering a few inarticulate words, and then saying aloud, "Sir Nigel, my lord, my--my--master, where is he?
oh! let me go to him; why am I here ?" "Thou shalt go to him, poor boy, as soon as thy strength returns; an they have let thee follow him from Scotland, surely they will not part ye now," said the countess soothingly, and her voice seemed to rouse the lad into more consciousness.

He gazed long in her face, with an expression which at that time she could not define, but which startled and affected her, and she put her arm round him and kissed his brow.

A convulsive almost agonized sob broke from the boy's breast, and caused his slight frame to shake as with an ague, then suddenly he knelt before her, and, in accents barely articulate, murmured-- "Bless me, oh bless me!" while another word seemed struggling for utterance, but checked with an effort which caused it to die on his lips in indistinct murmurs.
"Bless thee, poor child! from my very heart I do, if the blessing of one sorrowing and afflicted as myself can in aught avail thee.