ting on'
like a hawk before a favouring chance. But now two further figures
appeared upon the scene. Dand with a whinger and Meg with her glowing
brand came speeding to their master's rescue. The Land Sergeant and his
man bore down upon Si with lances levelled in haste, hoping to dispatch
him out of hand.

Si wheeled and turned his horse so swiftly that he surprised his nearest
foe, and 'instantly stooped' upon him. He caught him, turned half
about, and ran him through the hip, and dragged him from his saddle. But
his lance's head was twisted, he could not free it, and the Land
Sergeant bore down on him with gleaming spear. Just as Si thought he was
transfixed something interposed, a sigh or groan was heard; then Si was
on the ground, kneeling beside his wife whose life-blood a spear head
was drinking.

'Oh, Meg,' he cried; 'my Meg! Twice ye ha' saved my life, and now I
canna save yours,' and he supported his wife in his arms with infinite
tenderness. Meg lay quietly against his bosom, her eyes fixed upon his,
then she murmured softly with 'ane little laughter,' 'Kiss me good-bye,
Si, an'--on the "muckle moo."' Even as their lips met a mist stole
gently over Meg's eyes, and she saw Si no more.

[Footnote 1: Provost is really an anachronism, Hawick having been content
with Bailies till the nineteenth century.]

[Footnote 2: Tery, an inhabitant of Hawick, derived from their slogan
'Teribus and Tery Odin.']

[Footnote 3: Hawick hospitality and 'Hawick gills' are proverbial: any
one who has been fortunate, like the author, in having been a guest at
the Common Riding will have realised this.]

THE PRIOR OF TYNEMOUTH

Prior Olaf stood on the central merlon of the gate tower that protected
the little cell of Tynemouth from assault on the landward side, and
gazed intently over the sea below him to the eastward haze wherein he
feared to descry the red-brown sails of the serpent ships.

He was himself by birth a Dane: had even in his ardent youth been a
follower of the Raven sign and the banner of the Landwaster, but having
been wounded and left behind in a raid into England had been nursed by
monks, and eventually had taken the robe and cowl.

The wind had been continuously for a week in the eastern airt, and a
raid from his heathen fellow-countrymen seemed inevitable, since
Providence appeared to be tempting them with opportunity.

The good Prior could discern nothing alarming, yet he had a foreboding
that