shrieked, "Stay! stay! it is thy brother." But the
sword of Bertram, already descending with the force of rage and fury in
the blow, could not be stayed until too late. The fair maid's breast was
pierced by the sword of the knight who loved her, and she sank down by
the side of the youth who had delivered her. It was indeed Bertram's
brother, who had succeeded in his search; and the dying maiden found
time to tell of his devotion, in rescuing her from this castle of the
son of a Scottish lord who fain would have made her his bride, before
she, too, lay lifeless by the side of her brave rescuer, leaving her
lover too despairing and desolate to seek safety in flight, so that the
band of searchers from the castle, seeking their prisoner on the hills,
and dreading their lord's wrath on his return, bore him back with them
to the dungeon. Their lord, however, had meantime been taken captive by
Percy (Hotspur), who, as soon as he heard of Bertram's capture, quickly
exchanged the Scottish chief for his friend. Bertram's sorrow lasted for
the rest of his days; he gave away his lands and possessions to the
poor, and retiring to a lovely spot on the banks of the Coquet, where
rocky cliffs overhung the river, he carved out in the living stone a
little cell, dormitory, and chapel, and dwelt there, passing his days in
mourning, meditation, and prayer. In the chapel, with its gracefully
arched roof, he fashioned on an altar-tomb the image of a lady, and at
her feet the figure of a hermit, in the attitude of grief, one hand
supporting his head and the other pressed against his breast, leaning
over and gazing at the lady for ever. The poignant sentence "My tears
have been my meat day and night," is carved over the entrance to the
little chapel. Here, in this beautiful spot, almost under the shadow of
the castle walls belonging to his noble friend, the sorrowing knight,
now a holy hermit, spent the remainder of his life in the little
dwelling he had wrought in the living rock. It remains to-day more
beautiful, if possible, than ever, overhung by a canopy of waving
greenery, and draped with ferns and mosses, their graceful fronds laved
by the rippling Coquet whose gentle murmurings fill the still air with
music.

The next tale takes us to the neighbourhood of Belford, and out upon the
old post road from London to Edinburgh. In the unsettled times of James
the Second's reign, one Sir John Cochrane of Ochiltree was condemned to
death for hi