ack to the farm. Which one
will you have,--or shall I tell you a new one?"

The blue eyes sparkled with the delight of anticipation. "Oh, please!"
he cried; "the one about the bold Buckle-oh!"

Hilda laughed merrily. "The bauld Buccleugh?" she repeated. "Oh! you
mean 'Kinmont Willie.' Yes, indeed, you shall have that. It is one of my
favorite ballads, and I am glad you like it."

"Oh, I tell yer!" cried Bubble. "When he whangs the table, and says do
they think his helmet's an old woman's bunnit, an' all the rest of
it,--I tell ye that's _some_, Miss Hildy!"

"You have the spirit of the verse, Bubble," said Hilda, laughing softly;
"but the words are not _quite_ right." And she repeated the splendid,
ringing words of Buccleugh's indignant outcry:

"Oh! is my basnet a widow's curch,
Or my lance a wand o' the willow-tree,
Or my arm a lady's lily hand,
That an English lord should lightly me?

"And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie,
Against the truce of Border tide,
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleugh
Is warden here o' the Scottish side?

"And have they e'en ta'en him, Kinmont Willie,
Withouten either dread or fear,
And forgotten that the bauld Buccleugh
Can back a steed or shake a spear?"

Zerubbabel Chirk fairly danced up and down in his excitement "Oh! but
begin again at the beginning, _please_, Miss Hildy," he cried.

So Hilda, nothing loth, began at the beginning; and as they walked
homeward, recited the whole of the noble old ballad, which if any
girl-reader does not know, she may find it in any collection of Scottish
ballads.

"And the best of it is, Bubble," said Hilda, "that it is all
true,--every word of it; or nearly every word."

"I'll bet it is!" cried Bubble, still much excited. "They couldn't make
lies sound like that, ye know! You kind o' _know_ it's true, and it goes
right through yer, somehow. When did it happen, Miss Hildy?"

"Oh! a long time ago," said Hildegarde; "near the end of the sixteenth
century. I forget just the very year, but it was in the reign of Queen
Elizabeth. She was very angry at Buccleugh's breaking into Carlisle
Castle, which was an English castle, you see, and carrying off Lord
Scroope's prisoner; and she sent word to King James of Scotland that he
must give up Buccleugh to her to punish as she saw fit. King James
refused at first, for he said that Lord Scroope had been the first to
break the tru