ee among my own
people. My holiday is dropping from me like sands in an hour-glass!'

He mounted, however, and put his horse to as round a pace as could be
maintained by the whole party with out distress; nor did he again break
silence for many miles.

At the gates of Berwick, then in English hands, be gave a pass-word, and
was admitted, he bade Nigel conduct Lord Malcolm to an inn, explaining
that it was his duty to present himself to the governor; and, being
detained to sup with him, was seen no more till they started the next
morning. The governor rode out with them some ten miles, with a strong
guard of spearmen; and after parting with him they pushed on to the
south.

After the first day's journey, Malcolm was amazed to see Sir James mount
without any of his defensive armour, which was piled on the spare horse;
his head was covered by a chaperon, or flat cap with a short curtain to
it, and his sword was the only weapon he retained. Nigel was also nearly
unarmed, and Sir James advised Malcolm himself to lay aside the light
hawberk he wore; then, at his amazed look, said, 'Poor lad! he never saw
the day when he could ride abroad scathless. When will the breadth of
Scotland be as safe as these English hills?'

He was very kind to his young companion, treating him in all things like
a guest, pointing out what was worthy of note, and explaining what was
new and surprising. Malcolm would have asked much concerning the King,
to whom he was bound, but these questions were the only ones Sir James
put aside, saying that his kinsman would one day learn that it ill
beseemed those who were about a king's person to speak of him freely.

One night was spent at Durham, the parent of Coldingham, and here Malcolm
felt at home, far more grand as was that mighty cathedral institution.
There it stood, with the Weir encircling it, on its own fair though
mighty hill, with all the glory of its Norman mister and lovely
Lady-chapel; yet it seemed to the boy more like a glorified Coldingham
than like a strange region.

'The peace of God rests on the place,' he said, when Sir James asked his
thoughts as he looked back at the grand mass of buildings. 'These are
the only spots where the holy and tender can grow, like the Palestine
lilies sheltered from the blast in the Abbot's garden at Coldingham.'

'Nay, lad, it were an ill world did lilies only grow in abbots' gardens.'

'It is an ill world,' said Malcolm.

'Let us hear what