A NORSE SUPPER.
How goodly seems it ever to employ,
Man's social days in union and in joy;
The plenteous board high-heaped with oates divine,
And o'er the foaming bowl the laughing wine.
Odyssey, Book ix.
Bothwell surveyed the hall with a rapid glance, and then his eyes met those of his friend and vassal, Hob of Ormiston, who had been making a similar scrutiny, and he slightly shrugged his shoulders; for mentally he had been reverting to his noble castle of Crichton, that
——"rises on the steep
Above the vale of Tyne;"
his lordly towers of Bothwell, that still, magnificent in their ruins, overlook the beautiful Clyde, and therefrom he drew comparisons very disadvantageous to "the king's castle of Bergen," as the old castellan thereof was so fond of styling his residence.
"'Tis but a poor-looking hold this, my lord," said Hob in French; "yet I dare swear we may put over the night in it very well."
A shade crossed the brow of Lady Anna, as with a gentle air of pique, and in the same language, she said—
"I am grieved, noble sirs, that the accommodation of our poor house displeases you."
"Cogsbones!" muttered Black Hob with confusion, but the Earl laughed.
"Ah, you know French!" he exclaimed with pleasure; "'tis delightful! I will be able to converse with you so much more fluently than in the broken Norse of the Shetlanders."