"Gentleman you call yourself, sir," said her father; "may I ask of what
house?"

"We are cadets of the house of Rothes," I answered. "My father, Leslie
of Pitcullo, is the fourth son of the third son of the last laird of
Rothes but one; and, for me, I was of late a clerk studying in St.
Andrews."

"I will not ask why you left your lore," he said; "I have been young
myself, and, faith, the story of one lad varies not much from the story
of another. If we have any spirit, it drives us out to fight the foreign
loons in their own country, if we have no feud at home. But you are a
clerk, I hear you say, and have skill enough to read and write?"

"Yea, and, if need were, can paint, in my degree, and do fair lettering
on holy books, for this art was my pleasure, and I learned it from a
worthy monk in the abbey."

"O day of miracles!" he cried. "Listen, Elliot, and mark how finely I
have fallen in luck's way! Lo you, sir, I also am a gentleman in my
degree, simple as you see me, being one of the Humes of Polwarth; but by
reason of my maimed leg, that came to me with scars many, from certain
shrewd blows got at Verneuil fight, I am disabled from war. A murrain on
the English bill that dealt the stroke! To make up my ransom (for I was
taken prisoner there, where so few got quarter) cost me every crown I
could gather, so I even fell back on the skill I learned, like you, when
I was a lad, from a priest in the Abbey of Melrose. Ashamed of my craft
I am none, for it is better to paint banners and missals than to beg; and
now, for these five years, I am advanced to be Court painter to the King
himself, thanks to John Kirkmichael, Bishop of Orleans, who is of my far-