retty, spiritless son to him,
and made him promise to carry on the war; he then ordered that his
body should be boiled in a caldron, and that his bones should be
wrapped up in a bull's hide, and carried at the head of the army in
future campaigns against the Scots. After these and some other queer
requests, death relieved him of the hard politics of this world, and
so he went away. Then his son, Edward II., tucked away the belligerent
old King's bones among the bones of other old kings in Westminster
Abbey, and spent his time in dissipation among his favorites, and
allowed the resolute Scots to recover Scotland.

"Good James, Lord Douglas, was a very wise man in his day. He may not
have had long shanks, but he had a very long head, as you shall
presently see. He was one of the hardest foes with whom the two
Edwards had to contend, and his long head proved quite too powerful
for the second Edward, who, in his single campaign against the Scots,
lost at Bannockburn nearly all that his father had gained.

"The tall Scottish Castle of Roxburgh stood near the border, lifting
its grim turrets above the Teviot and the Tweed. When the Black
Douglas, as Lord James was called, had recovered castle after castle
from the English, he desired to gain this stronghold, and determined
to accomplish his wish.

"But he knew it could be taken only by surprise, and a very wily ruse
it must be. He had outwitted the English so many times that they were
sharply on the lookout for him.

"How could it be done?

"Near the castle was a gloomy old forest, called Jedburgh. Here, just
as the first days of spring began to kindle in the sunrise and
sunsets, and warm the frosty hills, Black Douglas concealed sixty
picked men.

"It was Shrove-tide, and Fasten's Eve, immediately before the great
Church festival of Lent, was to be celebrated with a great gush of
music and blaze of light and free offerings of wine in the great hall
of the castle. The garrison was to have leave for merry-making and
indulging in drunken wassail.

"The sun had gone down in the red sky, and the long, deep shadow began
to fall on Jedburgh woods, the river, the hills, and valleys.

"An officer's wife had retired from the great hall, where all was
preparation for the merry-making, to the high battlements of the
castle, in order to quiet her little child and put it to rest. The
sentinel, from time to time, paced near her. She began to sing,--

"'Hush ye,
Hush ye