to follow. He also cast around a glance of examination, which
implied pity not altogether unmingled with contempt, to which,
perhaps, it is as nearly akin as it is said to be to love. He
then stooped his lofty crest, and entered a lowly hut, which his
bulky form seemed almost entirely to fill.

The interior of the hut was chiefly occupied by two beds. One
was empty, but composed of collected leaves, and spread with an
antelope's hide. It seemed, from the articles of armour laid
beside it, and from a crucifix of silver, carefully and
reverentially disposed at the head, to be the couch of the knight
himself. The other contained the invalid, of whom Sir Kenneth
had spoken, a strong-built and harsh-featured man, past, as his
looks betokened, the middle age of life. His couch was trimmed
more softly than his master's, and it was plain that the more
courtly garments of the latter, the loose robe in which the
knights showed themselves on pacific occasions, and the other
little spare articles of dress and adornment, had been applied by
Sir Kenneth to the accommodation of his sick domestic. In an
outward part of the hut, which yet was within the range of the
English baron's eye, a boy, rudely attired with buskins of deer's
hide, a blue cap or bonnet, and a doublet, whose original finery
was much tarnished, sat on his knees by a chafing-dish filled
with charcoal, cooking upon a plate of iron the cakes of barley-bread, which were then, and still are, a
favourite food with the
Scottish people. Part of an antelope was suspended against one
of the main props of the hut. Nor was it difficult to know how
it had been procured; for a large stag greyhound, nobler in size
and appearance than those even which guarded King Richard's sick-bed, lay eyeing the process of baking
the cake. The sagacious