"Never have I felt so free, since Otterburn--never, indeed, since that unfortunate day when I was wounded, and conceived the fatal idea of becoming a monk.

Two or three times, the impulse to troll out a trooper's song was so strong in me, that I had to clap my hand over my mouth, to keep it in." "'Tis well you did, Roger, for assuredly if you had so committed yourself, on the first day of starting, I must have sent you back to Alnwick, feeling that it would not be safe for you to proceed with me farther.

When we get upon the Cheviots, tomorrow, you may lift your voice as you choose; but it were best that you confined yourself to a Latin canticle, even there, for the habit of breaking into songs of the other kind might grow upon you." "I will do so," Roger said, seriously.

"Some of the canticles have plenty of ring and go, and the words matter not, seeing that I do not understand them." The next morning they resumed their journey, crossed the Cheviots, which were here comparatively low hills; and, after four hours' riding, arrived at Roxburgh.
"Why do we come here ?" Roger asked.

"It would surely have been much shorter had we travelled through Berwick, and along the coast road." "Much shorter, Roger; but Sir Henry thought it better that we should go inland to Haddington, and thence east to Dunbar; as, thus entering the town, it would seem that we came from Edinburgh, or from some western monastery; whereas, did we journey by the coast road, it might be guessed that we had come from England." As before, they put up at a hostelry; and Oswald then proceeded, on foot, to the governor's house.