ey dare
not say so. That would have been to mention a subject which nearly threw
the King into a fit whenever he thought of it.

For just a year before, a brave young Scottish Knight had come over to
France to take service at the King's Court. His name was Young Bekie,
and he was so strong and so noble that at first the King had loved him
like a son. But before long the young man had fallen in love with Burd
Isbel, and of course Burd Isbel had fallen in love with him, and he had
gone straight to the King, and asked him if he might marry her;--and
then the fat was in the fire.

For although the stranger seemed to be brave, and noble, and good, and
far superior to any Frenchman, he was not of royal birth, and the King
declared that it was a piece of gross impertinence on his part ever to
think of marrying a king's daughter.

It was in vain that the older nobles, who had known Burd Isbel since she
was a child, begged for pity for the young man, and pointed out his good
qualities; the King would not listen to them, but stamped, and stormed,
and raged with anger. He gave orders that the poor young Knight should
be shut up in prison at once, and threatened to take his life; and he
told his daughter sharply that she was to think no more about him.

But Burd Isbel could not do that, and she used to creep to the back of
the prison door, when no one was near, and listen wistfully, in the hope
that she might hear her lover's voice. For a long time she was
unsuccessful, but one day she heard him bemoaning his hard fate--to be
kept a prisoner in a foreign land, with no chance of sending a message
to Scotland of the straits that he was in.

"Oh," he murmured piteously to himself, "if only I could send word home
to Scotland to my father, he would not leave me long in this vile
prison. He is rich, and he would spare nothing for my ransom. He would
send a trusty servant with a bag of good red gold, and another of bonnie
white silver, to soften the cruel heart of the King of France."

Then she heard him laugh bitterly to himself.

"There is little chance that I will escape," he muttered, "for who is
likely to carry a message to Scotland for me? No, no, my bones will rot
here; that is clear enough. And yet how willingly I would be a slave, if
I could escape. If only some great lady needed a servant, I would gladly
run at her horse's bridle if she could gain me my liberty. If only a
widow needed a man to help her, I would promise to