soldier's bed. He stood for a few minutes at the entrance to his tent
contemplating the scene before him, rendered more interesting by a clear
moon, whose silver beams fell, in the silence of a night without a breath
of wind, calmly on the slumbers of mortals destined to mix in the melee
of dreadful war, perhaps on the morrow. As he stood gazing, irresolute
whether to retire to rest or indulge longer in a train of thought not
very suitable to a warrior who delighted in the spirit-stirring scenes of
his profession, his eye was attracted by the figure of an old woman, who
approached him with a trembling step, leaning on a staff, and holding in
her left hand three English cloth-shaft arrows.

"You are he who is ca'ed the guid Sir James?" said the old woman.

"I am, good woman," replied Sir James. "Why hast thou wandered from the
sutler's camp?"

"I dinna belang to the camp o' the hoblers," answered the woman. "I hae
been a residenter in Linthaughlee since the day when King Alexander
passed the door o' my cottage wi' his bonny French bride, wha was
terrified awa' frae Jedburgh by the death's-head whilk appeared to her on
the day o' her marriage. What I hae suffered sin' that day" (looking at
the arrows in her hand) "lies between me an' heaven."

"Some of your sons have been killed in the wars, I presume?" said Sir
James.

"Ye hae guessed a pairt o' my waes," replied the woman. "That arrow"
(holding out one of the three) "carries on its point the bluid o' my
first born; that is stained wi' the stream that poured frae the heart o'
my second; and that is red wi' the gore in which my youngest weltered, as