door bang after him.

'He will never let us go,' sighed Jean.

'You worked him into one of his tempers,' returned Eleanor. 'You should
have broached it to him more by degrees.'

'And lost the chance of going with Sir Patie and his wife, and got
plighted to the red-haired Master of Angus--never see sweet Meg and
her braw court, and the tilts and tourneys, but live among murderous
caitiffs and reivers all my days,' sobbed Jean.

'I would not be such a fule body as to give in for a hasty word or two,
specially of Jamie's,' said Eleanor composedly.

'And gin ye bide here,' added gentle Mary, 'we shall be all together,
and you will have Jamie and the bairnies.'

'Fine consolation,' muttered Jean.

'Eh well,' said Eleanor, we must go down and meet them.'

'This fashion!' exclaimed Jean. 'Look at your hair, Ellie--blown wild
about your ears like a daft woman's, and your kirtle all over mortar
and smut. My certie, you would be a bonnie lady to be Queen of Love and
Beauty at a jousting-match.'

'You are no better, Jeanie,' responded Eleanor.

'That I ken full well, but I'd be shamed to show myself to knights and
lairds that gate. And see Mary and all the lave have their hands as
black as a caird's.'

'Come and let Andie's Mary wash them,' said that little personage,
picking up fat Andrew in her arms, while he retained his beloved crab's
claw. 'Jeanie, would you carry Johnnie, he's not sure-footed, over the
stair? Annaple, take Lorn's hand over the kittle turning.'

One chamber was allotted to the entire party and their single nurse.
Being far up in the tower, it ventured to have two windows in the
massive walls, so thick that five-and-twenty steps from the floor were
needed to reach the narrow slips of glass in a frame that could be
removed at will, either to admit the air or to be exchanged for solid
wooden shutters to exclude storms by sea or arrows and bolts by land.
The lower part of the walls was hung with very grim old tapestry, on
which Holofernes' head, going into its bag, could just be detected;
there were two great solid box-beds, two more pallets rolled up for the
day, a chest or two, a rude table, a cross-legged chair, a few stools,
and some deer and seal skins spread on the floor completed the furniture
of this ladies' bower. There was, unusual luxury, a chimney with a
hearth and peat fire, and a cauldron on it, with a silver and a copper
basin beside it for washing purposes, never discarded by poor Q