p no' sae
well-favoured as the lassies over in Borthwick Water, or Teviotdale, I
warrant there is not one of them who hath proved such a good daughter,
or whose nature is so kind and generous."

[Footnote 10: Besides.]

Still young Harden hesitated, and glanced from the lady, who, poor
thing, had hidden her face in her hands, to the gallows, and from the
gallows back again to the lady.

Was ever mortal man in such a plight? Here he was, young, handsome,
rich, and little more than four-and-twenty, and he must either lose his
life on the green yonder, or marry a damsel whom everyone mocked at for
her looks.

"If only I could be alone with her for five minutes," he thought to
himself, "to see what she looks like, when there is no one to peep and
peer at her. The maiden hath not a chance in the midst of this
mannerless crowd, and methought her eyes were open and honest, as they
looked into mine a little while ago."

At that moment Meg Murray lifted her head once more, and gazed round her
like a stag at bay. Poor lassie, it had been bad enough to be jeered at
by her father, and flouted and scolded by her mother, because of the
unfortunately large mouth with which Providence had endowed her, without
being put up for sale, as it were, in the presence of all her father's
retainers, and find that the young man to whom she had been offered
chose to suffer death rather than have her for a bride.

It was the bitterest moment of all her life, and, had she known it, it
was the moment that fixed her destiny.

For young Willie of Harden saw that look, and something in it stirred
his pity. Besides, he noticed that her pale face was sweet and
innerly,[11] and her gray eyes clear and true.

[Footnote 11: Confiding.]

"Hold," he cried, just as Sir Juden, whose patience was quite exhausted,
gave a signal to his men-at-arms to seize the prisoner, and hurry him
off to the gallows, "I have changed my mind, and I accept the
conditions. But I call all men to witness that I accept not the hand of
this noble maiden of necessity, or against my will. I am a Scott, and,
had I been minded to, I could have faced death. But I crave the honour
of her hand from her father with all humility, and here I vow, before ye
all, to do my best to be to her a loyal and a true man."

Loud cheers, and much jesting, followed this speech, and men would have
crowded round the young Knight and made much of him, but he pushed his
way in grim silence up th