how near the Border it dwells! What was it named, Malcolm?’
‘The “Itinerarium of Adamnanus,” ’ replied Malcolm, blushing at the sudden appeal.
‘Ha! I’ve heard of it,’ cried the English knight. ‘I sent to half the convent libraries to beg the loan when Gilbert de Lannoy set forth for the survey of Palestine. Does the Monk of Iona tell what commodity of landing there may be on the coast?’
Malcolm had the sea-port towns at his fingers’ ends, and having in the hard process of translation, and reading and re-reading one of the few books that came into his hands, nearly mastered the contents, he was able to reply with promptness and precision, although with much amazement, for
‘Much he marvelled a knight of pride
Like book-bosomed priest should ride;’
nor had he ever before found his accomplishments treated as aught but matters of scorn among the princes and nobles with whom he had occasionally been thrown.
‘Good! good!’ said Sir Harry at last. ‘Well read, and clearly called to mind. The stripling will do you credit, James. Where have you studied, fair cousin?’
Cousin! was it English fashion to make a cousin of everybody? But gentle, humble Malcolm had no resentment in him, and felt gratified at the friendly tone of so grand and manly-looking a knight. ‘At home,’ he answered, ‘with a travelling scholar who had studied at Padua and Paris.’
‘That is where you Scots love to haunt! But know you how they are served there? I have seen the gibbet where the Mayor of Paris hung two clerks’ sons for loving his daughters over well!’
‘The clerks’ twa sons of Owsenford that were foully slain!’ cried Malcolm, his face lighting up. ‘Oh, Sir, have you seen their gibbet?’
‘What? were they friends of yours?’ asked Hal, much amused, and shaking his head merrily at Sir James. ‘Ill company, I fear—’
‘Only in a ballad,’ said Malcolm, colouring, ‘that tells how at Yuletide the ghosts came to their mother with their hats made of the birk that grew at the gates of Paradise.’
‘A rare ballad must that be!’ exclaimed Hal. ‘Canst sing it? Or are you weary?—Marmion, prithee tell some of the fellows to bring my harp from the baggage.’
‘His own harp is with ours,’ said Sir James; ‘he will make a better figure therewith.’
At his sign, the attendant, Nigel, the only person besides Lord Marmion of Tanfield who had been present at the meal, besides the two Stewarts and the English brothers, rose and disappeared between the trees, beyond which a hum of voices, an occasional laugh, and the stamping of horses and jingling of bridles, betokened that a good many followers were in waiting. Malcolm’s harp was quickly brought, having been slung in its case to the saddle of Halbert’s horse; and as he had used it to beguile the last evening’s halt, it did not need much tuning. Surprised as his princely notions were at being commanded rather than requested to sing, the sweet encouraging smile and tone of kind authority banished all hesitation in complying, and he gave the ballad of the Clerks’ Twa Sons of Owsenford with much grace and sweetness, while the weakness of his voice was compensated by the manlier strains with which Sir James occasionally chimed in. Then, as Harry gave full meed of appreciative praise and thanks, Sir James said, ‘Lend me thine harp, Malcolm; I have learnt thy song now; and thou, Harry, must hear and own how far our Scottish minstrelsy exceeds thy boasted Chevy Chase.’
And forth rang in all the mellow beauty of his voice that most glorious of ballads, the Battle of Otterburn, as much more grand than it had been when he heard it from the glee-man or from Malcolm, as a magnificent voice, patriotic enthusiasm, and cultivation and refinement, could make it. He had lost himself and all around in the passion of the victory, the pathos of the death. But no such bright look of thanks recompensed him. Harry’s face grew dark, and he growled, ‘Douglas dead? Ay, he wins more fields so than alive! I wish you would keep my old Shrewsbury friend, Earl Tyneman, as you call him, at home.’
‘’Tis ill keeping the scholars in bounds when the master is away,’ returned Sir James.
‘Well, by this time Tom has taught them how to transgress—sent them home with the long scourge from robbing orchards in Anjou. He writes to me almost with his foot in the stirrup, about to give Douglas and Buchan a lesson. I shall make short halts and long stages south. This is too far off for tidings.’
‘True,’ said Sir John, with a satirical curl of the lip; ‘above all, when fair ladies brook not to ink their ivory fingers.’
‘There spake the envious fiend,’ laughed the elder brother. ‘John bears not the sight of what he will not or cannot get.’
‘I’ll never be chained to a lady’s litter, nor be forced to loiter till her wimple is pinned,’ retorted John. ‘Nor do I like dames with two husbands besides.’
‘One would have cancelled the other, as grammarians tell us,’ said Harry, ‘if thy charms, John, had cancelled thine hook nose! I would they had, ere her first marriage. Humfrey will burn his fingers there, and we must hasten back to look after that among other things.—My Lord Marmion,’ he added, starting hastily up, and calling to him as he stood at some distance conversing with the Scottish Nigel, ‘so please you, let us have the horses;’ and as the gentleman hastened to give the summons, he said, ‘We shall make good way now. We shall come on Watling Street. Ha, Jamie, when shall we prove ourselves better men than a pack of Pagan Romans, by having a set of roads fit for man or beast, of our own making instead of theirs half decayed? Look where I will, in England or France, their roads are the same in build—firm as the world itself, straight as arrows. An army is off one’s mind when once one gets on a Roman way. I’ll learn the trick, and have them from Edinburgh to Bordeaux ere ten years are out; and then, what with traffic and converse with the world, and ready justice, neither Highland men minor Gascons will have leisure or taste for robbery.’
‘Perhaps Gascons and Scots will have a voice in the matter,’ said James, a little stiffly; and the horses being by this time brought, Sir Harry mounted, and keeping his horse near that of young Malcolm, to whom he had evidently taken a fancy, he began to talk to him in so friendly and winning a manner, that he easily drew from the youth the whole history of his acquaintance with Sir James Stewart, of the rescue of his sister, and the promise to conduct him to the captive King of Scots, as the only means of saving him from his rapacious kindred.
‘Poor lad!’ said Harry, gravely.
‘Do you know King James, Sir?’ asked Malcolm, timidly.
‘Know him?’ said Harry, turning round to scan the boy with his merry blue eye. ‘I know him—yes; that as far as a poor Welsh knight can know his Grace of Scotland.’
‘And, Sir, will he be good lord to me?’
‘Eh! that’s as you may take him. I would not be one of yonder Scots under his hands!’
‘Has he learned to hate his own countrymen?’ asked Malcolm, in an awe-stricken voice.
‘Hate? I trow he has little to love them for. He is a good fellow enough, my young lord, when left to himself; but best beware. Lions in a cage have strange tempers.’
A courier rode up at the moment, and presented some letters, which Sir Harry at once opened and read, beckoning his brother and Sir James
