h scarce enough of ferocity about it'
(he gave a jerk to his sword as he spoke, and clanked it on the
brook-stones); 'yet do I assure you, cousin, that I am not without
some prowess; and many a master of defence hath this good sword of mine
disarmed. Now if the boldest and biggest robber in all this charming
valley durst so much as breathe the scent of that flower coronal, which
doth not adorn but is adorned'--here he talked some nonsense--'I would
cleave him from head to foot, ere ever he could fly or cry.'

"'Hush!' I said; 'talk not so loudly, or thou mayst have to do both
thyself, and do them both in vain.'

"For he was quite forgetting now, in his bravery before me, where he
stood, and with whom he spoke, and how the summer lightning shone above
the hills and down the hollow. And as I gazed on this slight fair youth,
clearly one of high birth and breeding (albeit over-boastful), a chill
of fear crept over me; because he had no strength or substance, and
would be no more than a pin-cushion before the great swords of the
Doones.

"'I pray you be not vexed with me,' he answered, in a softer voice;
'for I have travelled far and sorely, for the sake of seeing you. I know
right well among whom I am, and that their hospitality is more of the
knife than the salt-stand. Nevertheless I am safe enough, for my foot is
the fleetest in Scotland, and what are these hills to me? Tush! I have
seen some border forays among wilder spirits and craftier men than these
be. Once I mind some years agone, when I was quite a stripling lad--'

"'Worshipful guardian,' I said, 'there is no time now for history. If
thou art in no haste, I am, and cannot stay here idling. Only tell me
how I am akin and under wardship to thee, and what purpose brings thee
here.'

"'In order, cousin--all things in order, even with fair ladies. First,
I am thy uncle's son, my father is thy mother's brother, or at least thy
grandmother's--unless I am deceived in that which I have guessed, and no
other man. For my father, being a leading lord in the councils of
King Charles the Second, appointed me to learn the law, not for my
livelihood, thank God, but because he felt the lack of it in affairs
of state. But first your leave, young Mistress Lorna; I cannot lay down
legal maxims, without aid of smoke.'

"He leaned against a willow-tree, and drawing from a gilded box a little
dark thing like a stick, placed it between his lips, and then striking
a flint on steel