weapon in the world.

[Illustration: WEST TOWER, DUNFERMLINE ABBEY]

There is nothing, however, in this history more charming than the
description of the relations between the royal pair. King Malcolm had
probably known few graces in life except those, a step or two in advance
of his own, which were to be found in Northumberland in the house of
Earl Siward; and after the long practical struggle of his reign between
the Scots and Celts, who had already so far settled down together as to
constitute something which could be called a kingdom, he had no doubt
fallen even from that higher plane of civilisation. Such rude state as
the presence of a queen even in those primitive days might have procured
had been wanting, and all his faculties were probably absorbed in
keeping peace between the unruly chieftains, and fostering perhaps here
and there the first rising of a little community of burghers, strong
enough by union to defend themselves. Uneasy, there can be little doubt,
was often the head which bore the circlet of troubled supremacy among
all those half-subdued tribes; and his dwelling in the heart of the
"dense forest," amid all the noisy retainers in the hall and jealous
nobles in the council chamber, would leave little room for beauty or
sweetness of any kind. When the stranger princess suddenly came in like
an enchantment, with her lovely looks and "jocund eloquence"--full of
smiles and pleasant speech, yet with a dignity which overawed every rude
beholder--into these rude and noisy halls, with so many graceful ways
and beautiful garments and sparkling jewels, transforming the very
chambers with embroidered hangings and all the rare embellishments of a
lady's bower, with which no doubt the ship had been provided, and which
mediaeval princesses, like modern fine ladies, carried about with
them--the middle-aged man of war was evidently altogether subdued and
enraptured. To see her absorbed in prayer--an exercise which Malcolm had
perhaps felt to be the occupation of monks and hermits only--to see her
bending over her beautiful book with all its pictures, reading the
sacred story there, filled him with awe and a kind of adoration. He
could not himself read, which made the wonder all the more; but though
incapable of mastering what was within, he loved to handle and turn over
the book from which his beautiful wife derived her wisdom, touching it
with his rude hands with caressing touches, and kissing the pages she
love