gallant weakness of such conduct, disdained to leave their sovereign unprotected. Dacre and Howard, having defeated the Scottish wing in front of them, at this time turned their full strength against the flank of the Scottish centre. It was a terrific combat, the Scots fighting desperately in an unbroken ring around their king. The battle lasted till night, and almost annihilated the Scottish forces. Of all the splendid host, embracing the flower of the nobility and chivalry of the kingdom, only a few haggard and wounded stragglers returned to tell the tale. The English victors lost five thousand slain, and the Scots more than twice that number, and among them the greatest men of the land. They left on the field their king, two bishops, two mitred abbots, twenty-seven peers and their sons, and there was scarcely a family of any position in Scotland that did not lose a relative there. The young Earl of Caithness and his entire band of three hundred followers perished on the field. The body of the dead king, afterwards found by Dacre, was taken to Berwick and presented to his commander, who had it embalmed and conveyed to the monastery of Sheyne in Surrey. The poetic instincts of the Scots were deeply moved by the woes of the fatal field of Flodden, and innumerable poems and ballads record the sad story, the crowning work of all being Scott's _Marmion_. [Illustration: THE CRYPT, FORD CASTLE.] BAMBOROUGH AND GRACE DARLING. North of Flodden Field, and not far distant, is the Scottish Border, which in this part is made by the river Tweed, with Berwick at its mouth. The two kingdoms, so long in hot quarrel, are now united by a magnificent railway-bridge, elevated one hundred and twenty-five feet above the river and costing $600,000. For miles along the coast the railway runs almost upon the edge of the ocean, elevated on the cliffs high above the sea, while off the coast are Holy Isle and Lindisfarne. Here St. Cuthbert was the bishop, and its abbey is a splendid ruin, while on the rocky islet of Farne he lived a hermit, encompassing his cell with a mound so high that he could see nothing but the heavens. Two miles from Farne, on the mainland, was the royal city of Bebban Burgh, now Bamborough, the castle standing upon an almost perpendicular rock rising one hundred and fifty feet and overlooking the sea. This was King Ida's castle, a Border stronghold in ancient times whose massive keep yet stands. It is now a charity-school, a lighthouse, and a life-saving station. Thirty beds are kept in the restored castle for shipwrecked sailors, and Bamborough is to the mariner on that perilous coast what the convent of St. Bernard is to the traveller in the Alps. Here, at this Border haven, we will close this descriptive tour by recalling Bamborough's most pleasant memory--that of Grace Darling. She was a native of the place, and was lodged, clothed, and educated at the school in Bamborough Castle. Her remains lie in Bamborough churchyard under an