nce from their noisy comrades; but
acknowledging their attention with kindness and courtesy, he refused it,
and rousing himself with some difficulty from his desponding thoughts,
threw himself on the sward beside his men, and joined in their mirth and
jest.

"Hast thou naught to tell to while away this tedious hour, good
Murdoch?" he asked, after a while, addressing a gray-headed veteran.

"Aye, aye, a tale, a tale; thou hast seen more of the Bruce than all of
us together," repeated many eager voices, "and knowest yet more of his
deeds than we do; a tale an thou wilt, but of no other hero than the
Bruce."

"The Bruce!" echoed the veteran; "see ye not his deeds yourselves, need
ye more of them?" but there was a sly twinkle in his eye that betrayed
his love to speak was as great as his comrades to hear him. "Have ye not
heard, aye, and many of you seen his adventures and escapes in Carrick,
hunted even as he was by bloodhounds; his guarding that mountain pass,
one man against sixty, aye, absolutely alone against the Galwegian host
of men and bloodhounds; Glen Fruin, Loudun Hill, Aberdeen; the harrying
of Buchan; charging the treacherous foe, when they had to bear him from
his litter to his horse, aye, and support him there; springing up from
his couch of pain, and suffering, and depression, agonizing to witness,
to hurl vengeance on the fell traitors; aye, and he did it, and brought
back health to his own heart and frame; and Forfar, Lorn,
Dunstaffnage--know ye not all these things? Nay, have ye not seen,
shared in them all--what would ye more?"

"The harrying of Buchan, tell us of that," loudly exclaimed many voices;
while some others shouted, "the landing of the Bruce--tell us of his
landing, and the spirit fire at Turnberry Head; the strange woman that
addressed him."

"Now which am I to tell, good my masters?" laughingly answered the old
man, when the tumult in a degree subsided. "A part of one, and part of
the other, and leave ye to work out the rest yourselves; truly, a
pleasant occupation. Say, shall it be thus? yet stay, what says Sir
Amiot?"

"As you will, my friends," answered the knight, cheerily; "but decide
quickly, or we shall hear neither. I am for the tale of Buchan," there
was a peculiarly thrilling emphasis in his tone as he pronounced the
word, "for I was not in Scotland at the time, and have heard but
disjointed rumors of the expedition."

The veteran looked round on his eager comrades with an