to be the
couch of the knight himself. The other contained the invalid, of whom
Sir Kenneth had spoken, a strong-built and harsh-featured man, past, as
his looks betokened, the middle age of life. His couch was trimmed
more softly than his master's, and it was plain that the more courtly
garments of the latter, the loose robe in which the knights showed
themselves on pacific occasions, and the other little spare articles
of dress and adornment, had been applied by Sir Kenneth to the
accommodation of his sick domestic. In an outward part of the hut,
which yet was within the range of the English baron's eye, a boy,
rudely attired with buskins of deer's hide, a blue cap or bonnet, and a
doublet, whose original finery was much tarnished, sat on his knees by
a chafing-dish filled with charcoal, cooking upon a plate of iron the
cakes of barley-bread, which were then, and still are, a favourite food
with the Scottish people. Part of an antelope was suspended against one
of the main props of the hut. Nor was it difficult to know how it had
been procured; for a large stag greyhound, nobler in size and appearance
than those even which guarded King Richard's sick-bed, lay eyeing
the process of baking the cake. The sagacious animal, on their first
entrance, uttered a stifled growl, which sounded from his deep chest
like distant thunder. But he saw his master, and acknowledged his
presence by wagging his tail and couching his head, abstaining from more
tumultuous or noisy greeting, as if his noble instinct had taught him
the propriety of silence in a sick man's chamber.

Beside the couch sat on a cushion, also composed of skins, the Moorish
physician of whom Sir Kenneth had spoken, cross-legged, after the
Eastern fashion. The imperfect light showed little of him, save that
the lower part of his face was covered with a long, black beard, which
descended over his breast; that he wore a high TOLPACH, a Tartar cap of
the lamb's wool manufactured at Astracan, bearing the same dusky colour;
and that his ample caftan, or Turkish robe, was also of a dark hue.
Two piercing eyes, which gleamed with unusual lustre, were the only
lineaments of his visage that could be discerned amid the darkness in
which he was enveloped.

The English lord stood silent with a sort of reverential awe; for
notwithstanding the roughness of his general bearing, a scene of
distress and poverty, firmly endured without complaint or murmur, would
at any time have cl