nd dropping a gold coin into the wooden bowl carried round by the
blind minstrel's attendant, he was turning away, when the glee-man,
detecting perhaps the ring of the coin, broke forth in stirring tones--

"It fell about the Lammas tide,
When moormen win their hay,
The doughty Earl of Douglas rode
Into England to catch a prey."

Again he stood transfixed, beating time with his hand, his eyes beaming,
his hips moving as he followed the spirit-stirring ballad; and then, as
Douglas falls, and is laid beneath the bracken bush, unseen by his men,
and Montgomery forces Hotspur to yield, not to him, but

'to the bracken bush
That grows upon the lily lea,'

he sobbed without disguise; and no sooner was the ballad ended than he
sprang forward to the harper, crying, 'Again, again; another gold crown
to hear it again!'

'Sir,' entreated Nigel, 'remember how much hangs on your speed.'

'The ballad I _must_ have,' exclaimed Sir James, trying to shake him off.
'It moves the heart more than aught I ever heard! How runs it?'

'_I_ know the ballad,' said Malcolm, half in impatience, half in
contempt. 'I could sing every word of it. Every glee-man has it.'

'Nay--hear you, Sir--the lad can sing it,' reiterated Nigel; and Sir
James, throwing the promised guerdon to the minstrel, let himself be led
away to the front of the inn; but there was a piper, playing to a group
of dancers, and as if his feet could not resist the fascination, Sir
James held out his hand to the first comely lass he saw disengaged, and
in spite of the steel-guarded boots that he wore, answered foot for foot,
spring for spring, to the deft manoeuvres of her shoeless feet, with
equal agility and greater grace. Nigel frowned more than ever at this
exhibition, and when the knight had led his panting partner to a seat,
and called for a tankard of ale for her refreshment, he remonstrated more
seriously still. 'Sir, the gates of Berwick will be shut.'

'The days lengthen, man.'

'And who knows if some of yon land-loupers be not of Walter Stewart's
meine? Granted that they ken not yourself, that lad is only too
ken-speckle. Moreover, you ye made free enough with your siller to set
the haill crew of moss-troopers on our track.'

'Twenty mile to Berwick-gate,' said Sir James, carelessly; 'nor need you
ever look behind you at jades like theirs. Nay, friend, I come, since
you grudge me for once the sight of a little wholesome gl