kirtles and shepherd's tartan screens that had
made the journey from Dunbar were in no condition to do honour to royal
damsels.

Jean was in raptures with the graceful veils depending from the horned
headgear, worn, she was told, by the Duchess of Burgundy; but Eleanor
wept at the idea of obscuring the snood of a Scottish maiden, and would
not hear of resigning it.

'I feel as Elleen no more,' she said, 'but a mere Flanders popinjay. It
has changed my ain self upon me, as well as the country.'

'Thou shouldst have been born in a hovel!' returned Jean, raising her
proud little head. 'I feel more than ever what I am--a true princess!'

And she looked it, with beauty enhanced by the rich attire which only
made Eleanor embarrassed and uncomfortable.

Malcolm, the more scrupulous of the Drummond brothers, begged of George
Douglas, when at Durham, to write to his father and declare himself to
Sir Patrick, but the youth would do neither. He did not think himself
sufficiently out of reach, and, besides, the very sight of a pen was
abhorrent to him. There was something pleasing to him in the liberty of
a kind of volunteer attached to the expedition, and he would not give it
up. Nor was he without some wild idea of winning Jean's notice by some
gallant exploit on her behalf before she knew him for the object of her
prejudice, the Master of Angus. As to Sir Patrick, he was far too busy
trying to compose Border quarrels, and gleaning information about the
Gloucester and Beaufort parties at Court, to have any attention to spare
for the young man riding in his suite with the barefooted lad ever at
his stirrup.

Geordie never attempted to secure better accommodation than the other
lances; he groomed his steed himself, with a little assistance from
Ringan, and slept in the straw of its bed, with the lad curled up at his
feet; the only difference observable between him and the rest being that
he always groomed himself every night and morning as carefully as the
horse, a ceremony they thought entirely needless.

CHAPTER 3. FALCON AND FETTERLOCK

'Ours is the sky
Where at what fowl we please our hawk shall fly.'
--T. Randolph.

Beyond York that species of convoy, which ranged between protection and
supervision, entirely ceased; the Scottish party moved on their own wa
oftener through heath, rock, and moor, for England was not yet thickly
inhabited, though there was no lack of hostels or of