less confidence, been
exercised by our army last year, we wouldna hae this day to mourn owre
the battle o' Pinkie. I tell ye, therefore, again, just bide ye yet."

"Come in, Florence," said Madge; "draw in a seat and sit doun, and tell
me what ye mean."

"Hoots, Florence," said Janet, in a tone partaking of reproach and
alarm, "are ye gaun to be as daft as my mother? What matters it to us
wha's king or wha's queen?--it will be lang or either the ane or the
ither o' them do onything for us. When ye see lords and gentry in the
pay o' England, and takin its part, what can the like o' you or my
mother do?"

"Do! ye chicken-hearted trembler at yer ain shadow!" interrupted Madge;
"though somewhat past its best, I hae an arm as strong and healthy as
the best o' them, and the blood that runs in it is as guid as the
proudest o' them."

Now, the maiden name of Madge was Home; and when her pride was touched,
it was her habit to run over the genealogical tree of her father's
family, which she could illustrate upon her fingers, beginning on all
occasions--"I am, and so is every Home in Berwickshire, descended frae
the Saxon kings o' England and the first Earls o' Northumberland." Thus
did she run on, tracing their descent from Crinan, chief of the Saxons
in the north of England, to Maldredus, his son, who married Algatha,
daughter of Uthred, prince of Northumberland, and grand-daughter of
Ethelrid, king of England; and from Maldredus to his son Cospatrick,
of whose power William the Conqueror became jealous, and who was,
therefore, forced to fly into Scotland in the year 1071, where Malcolm
Canmore bestowed on him the manor of Dunbar, and many baronies in
Berwickshire. Thus did she notice three other Cospatricks, famous and
mighty men in their day, each succeeding Cospatrick the son of his
predecessor; and after them a Waldreve, and a Patrick, whose son,
William, marrying his cousin, he obtained with her the lands of Home,
and, assuming the name, they became the founders of the clan. From the
offspring of the cousin, the male of whom took the name of Sir William
Home, and from him through eleven other successors, down to George,
the fourth Lord Home, who had fallen while repelling the invasion of
Somerset a few months before, did Madge trace the roots, shoots, and
branches of her family, carrying it back through a period of more than
six hundred years; and she glowed, therefore, with true aristocratic
indignation at the remark