so that it rent asunder and fell on the floor, leaving me clad in my wet doublet and hose.

At which sight, without word spoken, she broke out into the merriest laughter that ever I heard, and the most welcome; and the Maid, too, catching the malady of her mirth, as it were, laughed low and graciously, so that to see and hear her was marvel.

'Begone!' cried Elliot-begone, and shift thy dripping gear;' and, as I fled swiftly to my chamber, I heard her laughter yet, but there came a sob into it; but for the Maid, she had already stinted in her mirth ere I left the room.

In this strange and unseemly fashion did I first come into the knowledge of this admirable maid-whom, alas! I was to see more often sad than merry, and weeping rather than laughing, though, even in her utmost need, her heart could be light and her mirth free: a manner that is uncommon even among brave men, but, in women, never known by me save in her. For it is the way of women to be very busy and seriously concerned about the smallest things, whereat a man only smiles. But she, with her life at stake, could pluck gaiety forth of danger, if the peril threatened none but herself. These manners of hers I learned to know and marvel at in the later days that came too soon, but now in my chamber, I shifted my wet raiment for dry with a heart wondrous light.

*

My craig was in peril, as we say, neither less nor more than half an hour agone, but I had escaped the anger of Elliot; and even, as I deemed, had won more of her good countenance, seeing that I had struck a blow for Scotland and for her friend. This thought made me great cheer in my heart; also I heard, from the room below, the voices of the two girls devising together very seriously for nigh the space of an hour. But, as knowing that they might have matters secret between themselves to tell of, for the Maiden had said that she brought good tidings, I kept coy and to myself in my little upper chamber. To leave the house, indeed, was more than my life was worth. Now to fly and hide was what I could not bring myself to venture; here I would stay where my heart was, and take what fortune the saints might send. So I endured to wait, and not gladden myself with the sight of Elliot and the knowledge of how I now stood with her. To me this was great penance, but,

* Neck.

at last the voices ceased, and, looking secretly from the window, I saw the Maiden depart, her archer following her.

Now I could no longer bridle in my desire to be with Elliot, and learn whether I was indeed forgiven, and how I stood in her favour. So, passing down the stair that led from my cubicle, I stood at the door of the room wherein she was and knocked twice. But none answered, and, venturing to enter, I heard the sound of a stifled sob. She had thrown herself on a settle, her face turned to the wall, and the afternoon sun was shining on her yellow hair, which lay loose upon her shoulders.

I dared to say no word, and she only made a motion of her hand towards me, that I should begone, without showing me the light of her countenance. On this I went forth stealthily, my heart again very heavy, for the Maiden had spoken of learning good tidings; and wherefore should my mistress weep, who, an hour agone, had been so merry? Difficult are the ways of women, a language hard to be understood, wherefore 'love,' as the Roman says, 'is full of anxious fears.'

Much misdoubting how I fared in Elliot's heart, and devising within myself what this new sorrow of Elliot's might signify, I half forgot my own danger, yet not so much as to fare forth of the doors, or even into the booth, where customers might come, and I be known. Therefore I passed into a room behind the booth, where my master was wont to instruct me in my painting; and there, since better might not be, I set about grinding and mixing such colours as I knew that he required.

I had not been long about this task, when I heard him enter the booth from without, when he walked straight into my workroom. I looked up from my colours, whereat his face, which was ruddy, grew wan, he staggered back, and, being lame, reeled against the wall. There he brought up, crossing himself, and making the sign of the cross at me.

'Avaunt!' he said, 'in the name of this holy sign, whether thou art a wandering spirit, or a devil in a dead man's semblance.'

'Master,' I said, 'I am neither spirit nor devil. Was it ever yet heard that brownie or bogle mixed colours for a painter? Nay, touch me, and see whether I am not of sinful Scots flesh and blood;' and thereon I laughed aloud, knowing what caused his fear, and merry at the sight of it, for he had ever held tales of diablerie, and of wraiths and freits and fetches, in high

scorn.

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ง

He sat him down on a chair and gaped upon me, while I could not contain myself from laughing.

'For God's sake,' said he, 'bring me a cup of red wine, for my wits are wandering. Deil's buckie,' he said in the Scots, 'will water not drown you? Faith, then, it is to hemp that you were born, as shall shortly be seen.'

I drew him some wine from a cask that stood in the corner, on draught. He drank it at one venture, and held out the cup for more, the colour coming back into his face.

'Did the archers tell me false, then, when they said that you had fired up at a chance word, and flung yourself and the sentinel into the moat? And where have you been wasting your time, and why went you from the bridge ere I came back, if the archers took another prentice lad for Norman Leslie ?'

'They told you truth,' I said.

'Then, in the name of Antichrist—that I should say so!-how 'scaped you drowning, and how came you here?'

I told him the story, as briefly as might be.

'Il luck go with that second-sighted wench that has bewitched Elliot, and you too, for all that I can see. Never did I think to be frayed with a bogle,* and, as might have been deemed, the bogle but a prentice loon, when all was done. To my thinking all this fairy work is no more true than that you are a dead man's wraith. But they are all wild about it, at the castle, where I was kept long, doing no trade, and listening to their mad clatter.'

He took out of his pouch a parcel heedfully wrapped in soft folds of silk.

'Here is this Book of Hours,' he said, 'that I have spent my eye-sight, and gold, purple, and carmine, and cobalt upon, these three years past; a jewel it is, though I say so. And I had good hope to sell it to Hugh Kennedy, for he has of late had luck in taking two English knights prisoners at Orleans-the only profitable trade that men now can drive, and the good knight dearly loves a painted book of devotion; especially if, like this of mine, it be adorned with the loves of Jupiter, and the Swan, and Danäe, and other heathen pliskies. We were chaffering over the price, and getting near a bargain, when in comes Patrick Ogilvie with a tale of this second-sighted Maid, and how she had been called to see the King, and of what befell.

Frightened by a ghost.

First, it seems, she boded the death of that luckless limb of a sentinel, and then you took it upon you to fulfill her saying, and so you and he were drowned, and I left prenticeless. Little comfort to me it was, to hear Kennedy and Ogilvie praise you for a good Scot and true, and say that it was great pity of your death.'

At this hearing my heart leaped for joy, first, at my own praise from such good knights, and next, because I saw a blink of hope, having friends at Court.

My master went on.

'Next, Ogilvie told how he had been in hall, with the Dauphin, the Chancellor Trémouille, and some scores of knights and nobles, a great throng. They were all waiting on this Lorrainer wench, for the Dauphin had been told, at last, that she brought a letter from Baudricourt, and before he would not see her. This letter had been kept from him, I guess by whom, and there was other clash of marvels wrought by her, I know not what. So their wisdom was set on putting her to a kind of trial, foolish enough! A young knight was dressed in jewels and a coronet of the King's, and the King was clad right soberly, and held himself far back in the throng, while the other stood in front, looking big. So the wench comes in, and, walking straight through the press of knights, with her head high kneels to the King, where he stood retired, and calls him "gentle Dauphin!"

"Nay, ma mie," says he, "'tis not I who am the Dauphin, but his Highness yonder,"--pointing to the young knight, 'who shows all his plumage like a black cock in spring.'

"Nay, gentle Dauphin,” she answers, so Ogilvie said, “it is to thee that I am sent, and no other, and I am come to save the good town of Orleans, and to lead thee to thy sacring at Rheims."

'Here they were all struck amazed, and the King not least, who then had some words apart with the girl. And he has given her rooms in the Tour Coudraye within the castle; and the clergy and the doctors are to examine her straitly, whether she be from a good airt,* or an ill, and all because she knew the King, she who had never seen him before. Why should she never have seen him—who warrants me of it ?—she dwelling these last days nigh the castle? Freits are folly, to my thinking, and fools they that follow them. Lad, you gave me a gliff; pass me another stoup of wine! Freits, forsooth!' *Airt,' ie. 'quarter.'

1

I served him, and he sat and chuckled in his chair, being pleasured by the thought of his own wisdom.

'Not a word of this to Elliot, though,' he said suddenly; 'when there is a woman in a house-blessings on her !—it is anything for a quiet life! But, nom Dieu! what with the fright you gave me, sitting there, whereas I deemed you were meat for eels and carp, and what with thy tale-ha, ha !—and my tale, and the wine, maybe, I forgot your own peril, my lad. Faith, your neck is like to be longer, if we be not better advised.'

Hearing him talk of that marvellous thing, wrought through inspiration by the Maid-whereat, as his manner was, he mocked, I had clean forgotten my own jeopardy. Now this was instant, for who knew how much the archer might have guessed, that followed with the Maid and me, and men-at-arms might anon be at our door.

'It may be,' said I, 'that Sir Patrick Ogilvie and Sir Hugh Kennedy would say a word for me in the King's ear.'

'Faith, that is our one chance, and, luckily for you, the lad you drowned, though in the King's service, came hither in the following of a poor knight, who might take blood-ransom for his man. Had he been La Trémouille's man, you must assuredly have fled the country.'

He took up his Book of Hours, with a sigh, and wrapped it again in its silken parcel.

'This must be your price with Kennedy,' he said, 'if better may not be. It is like parting with the apple of my eye, but, I know not well how, I love you, my lad, and blood is thicker than water. Give me my staff; I must hirple up that weary hill again, and you, come hither.'

He led me to his own chamber, where I had never been before, and showed me how, in the chimney-neuk, was a way into a certain black hole of little ease, wherein, if any came in search for me, I might lie hidden. And, fetching me a cold fish (Lenten cheer), a loaf, and a stoup of wine, whereof I was glad enough, he left me, groaning the while at his ill-fortune, but laden with such thanks as I might give for all his great kindness.

There then, I sat, when I had eaten, my ears pricked to listen for the tramp of armed men below and the thunder of their summons at the door. But they came not, and presently my thought stole back to Elliot, who, indeed, was never out of my mind then-nay, nor now is. But whether that memory be sinful VOL. 89 (IX.-NEW SERIES). NO 531.

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