"Nay! my sword has never been drawn against others than the fat citizens of Lubeck and Hamburg."
"Profitable warfare I would take that to be, and pleasant withal; for these Hanseatic burghers can wade above their baldricks in rixdollars, say our Leith shippers. So, then, thou art of Flanders?"
Willing to deceive him a little, Konrad nodded.
"I guessed thou wert a Fleming," replied the yeoman, laughing, "and so my heart warmed to thee; for they are all stout men and true. Mass! my own mother, who now sleeps at St. Mary in the Lows, was a Fleming of the house of Wigton, whose forbear, Baldwin le Flemyng, came from thy country in the days of St. David, to take knight's service, as I doubt not thou meanest to do."
Konrad again assented to his garrulous companion.
"Then there will be work enow for thy sword by Lammas-tide; for the stout Earl of Bothwell is about to make a royal raid into Clydesdale."
"Saidst thou Bothwell?" ejaculated Konrad, in a thick voice, and glancing hastily at Anna, who was now buried in a profound slumber, with her face concealed in her mantle.
"Yea, Bothwell—one of our queen's prime favourites; but there will be many a lance broken, and many a steed left riderless, ere he shall traverse all the windings of the Liddle. By St. Mary! but they must keep sharp watch and ward at the gate of his castle of Hermitage; for by this time, I warrant, the troopers of John of Park have all been riding by moss and moor."
"Who is this John of Park, of whom I hear so many speak, either with hatred or applause?"
"The chief of the brave clan Elliot, and long Lord Bothwell's mortal foe."