that he was represented, all over the
Borders, as being the most jovial baron of his time. The fame of Kate
also went abroad like fire-flaughts; but no one knew what to make of
her--whether to set her down as a beautiful virago, or as a merry imp of
sportive devilry, who fought her father's enemy with the same good-will
she felt towards the lovers whom she delighted with her beauty and
gaiety, and tormented by her cruel waggeries and wiles.

This apparent quietness, and the consequent freedom from all danger,
induced the old baron to comply with a request made to him by King
James, to lend him forty of his followers, to aid in suppressing some
disturbances caused by a number of outlawed reivers at that time
ravaging the Borders. Katherine gave her consent to the measure; but she
wisely exacted the condition that the men should not be removed to a
greater distance from the castle than ten miles. When James' emissary
asked her why she adjected this condition to her father's agreement, she
answered, with that waggish mystery in which she often loved to indulge,
that she had such a universal love for his--the emissary's--sex, that
she could not suffer the idea of her gallant men being further removed
from her than the distance on which she had condescended. A question for
explanation only produced another wicked _quodlibet_; so that the royal
messenger was obliged to be contented with a reason that sounded in his
ears very like a contempt of royal authority--a circumstance for which
she cared no more than she did for the mute expression of admiration of
her beauty, that her quick eye detected on the face of the deputy.

The men having been detached from the castle for the service of the
king, there remained only a small number, not more than sufficient for
occupying the more important stations on the walls of the strength.
There was, however, no cause for alarm; and old Innerkepple continued to
speculate over his spiced Tokay, on his three grand subjects of
antiquarian research; while Katherine followed her various occupations
of listening to and laughing at his reveries, sewing battle scenes on
satin, and killing her knights with her needle, in as many grotesque
ways as her inventive fancy could devise. One day the sound of a horn
cut right through the middle a long pull of Canary in the act of being
perfected by the old baron's powers of swallow; and, in a short time,
the warder came in and said that a wine merchant, with