will, I love the open air better
than being shut up in a cage or a swallow's nest yonder, as you call
these same grated pepper boxes. Besides," he added, in a lower voice,
"to speak truth, I love not the Castle when the covin tree bears such
acorns as I see yonder."

[The large tree in front of a Scottish castle was sometimes called so.
It is difficult to trace the derivation; but at that distance from the
castle the laird received guests of rank, and thither he conveyed them
on their departure. S.]

"I guess what you mean," said the Frenchman; "but speak yet more
plainly."

"To speak more plainly, then," said the youth, "there grows a fair oak
some flight shot or so from yonder Castle--and on that oak hangs a man
in a gray jerkin, such as this which I wear."

"Ay and indeed!" said the man of France--"Pasques dieu! see what it is
to have youthful eyes! Why, I did see something, but only took it for a
raven among the branches. But the sight is no ways strange, young man;
when the summer fades into autumn, and moonlight nights are long, and
roads become unsafe, you will see a cluster of ten, ay of twenty such
acorns, hanging on that old doddered oak.--But what then?--they are so
many banners displayed to scare knaves; and for each rogue that hangs
there, an honest man may reckon that there is a thief, a traitor, a
robber on the highway, a pilleur and oppressor of the people the fewer
in France. These, young man, are signs of our Sovereign's justice."

"I would have hung them farther from my palace, though, were I King
Louis," said the youth. "In my country, we hang up dead corbies where
living corbies haunt, but not in our gardens or pigeon houses. The very
scent of the carrion--faugh--reached my nostrils at the distance where
we stood."

"If you live to be an honest and loyal servant of your Prince, my good
youth," answered the Frenchman, "you will know there is no perfume to
match the scent of a dead traitor."

"I shall never wish to live till I lose the scent of my nostrils or the
sight of my eyes," said the Scot. "Show me a living traitor, and here
are my hand and my weapon; but when life is out, hatred should not live
longer.--But here, I fancy, we come upon the village, where I hope to
show you that neither ducking nor disgust have spoiled mine appetite for
my breakfast. So my good friend, to the hostelrie, with all the speed
you may.--Yet, ere I accept of your hospitality, let me know by what
name to call