face without
ceremony; but methinks, at present, the latter were more likely than
the former; for his hold is full of armed men, and I should say it were
wisest to leave him alone, even if you had but the bare moor to sleep
upon."

"Nevertheless, I can but try," the monk said. "He may be in one of
those good tempers you spoke of. And I suppose he has also a priest, in
his fortalice?"

"Ay, the Bairds are not--but I would rather not talk of them. They are
near neighbours, and among my very best customers."

As he spoke, four armed men came in at the door.

"Good day, Wilson! Whom have you here? An ill-assorted couple, surely.
A monk, though a somewhat rough one, and a man-at-arms."

"Fellow travellers of a day," Roger said calmly. "We met on the road,
and as I love not solitude, having enough and to spare of it, I
accosted him. He turned out a good companion."

"You are a man of sinew yourself, monk, and methinks that you would
have made a better soldier than a shaveling."

"I thought so sometime, myself," the monk said; "but my parents thought
otherwise, and it is too late to take up another vocation, now."

"Is that staff yours?" the soldier asked, taking it up, and handling
it.

"Yes, my son. In these days even a quiet religious man, like myself,
may meet with rough fellows by the way; and while that staff gives
support to my feet, it is an aid to command decent behaviour from those
I fall in with. I have not much to lose, having with me but sufficient
to buy me victuals for my journey to Carlisle; where, as I have just
told our host, I am journeying to see a brother, who is prior at a
convent there."

"This fellow--where did you fall in with him?"

"He overtook me some twenty miles north, on the road to Glasgow."

"And are you travelling to Carlisle, too?" the man said to Oswald.

"Nay," he said, "I purpose not going beyond the border. I have lost my
employment, and have tried, in vain, to find another as much to my
liking. I have come south to seek service, with one who will welcome a
strong arm to wield a sword."

"Hast tried the Douglas?"

"No," he said, "the Douglas has men enough of his own, and methinks I
should not care to be mewed up in one of his castles. I have had enough
of that already, seeing that I was a man-at-arms with George Dunbar,
till he turned traitor and went over to the English."

"You look a likely fellow; but, you know, we do not pay men, here, to
do our fighting for us.