she chose to put his mettle to the test before giving him her hand. She sent him a helmet as her love-token, desiring him to try its temper ‘wherever blows fell sharpest;’ and Bertram, obedient to her behest, rode with his brother-in-arms, Lord Percy, on a raid into Scotland, where he was wounded nearly to the death in a desperate fray. The tidings were brought to Isabel, who, struck with terror and remorse, at once set out to go to him, but on her way was seized by some prowling moss-troopers, and carried off to one of their secret fastnesses beyond the border. Thus when at the downfall of the night her rescued Knight was carried home on the shields of his followers, he found his lady gone, and all traces of her lost. He made a vow never to rest till he had found her, and his brother promised to help him in the quest. As soon as his health permitted, they went forth together in a humble disguise, and the better to conduct their search, agreed to separate, the brother going northwards and Bertram himself to the west. For many weary days and weeks he wandered over moss and moor in vain; till at length when he had almost lost heart, a compassionate pilgrim directed him to a distant peel-tower in which a lady’s voice had been heard lamenting. Bertram found the place, and recognized the voice; but watched the tower for two successive nights without obtaining a glimpse of his Isabel. On the third night, however, that he lay crouched in his hiding-place, he saw her descend a ladder of ropes thrown from an upper window, assisted by a man muffled up in a cloak, who bore her across the little stream and led her away, clinging fondly to his arm. Bertram, maddened at the sight, rushed after them with his naked sword, and attacked his rival, who defended himself manfully; but after a stubborn conflict, Bertram succeeded in bringing him to the ground, and stabbed him to the heart, with the words, ‘Die, traitor!’ Then, when she heard his voice the wretched Isabel for the first time knew who he was, and sprang forward to arrest the blow, shrieking, ‘It is thy brother!’ She was too late, for the deed was done, and in the struggle to throw herself between them, she slipped against Bertram’s sword, and fell pierced, by his brother’s side. For that night’s bloody tragedy the unhappy Bertram did penance to the end of his days. He renounced every tie that bound him to the world. His sword and spear were hung up in his hall, his inheritance passed on to others and his goods were given to the poor, while he himself, clad in monastic garb, took refuge in the rocky recesses of Coquetdale, near Warkworth Castle. No more ideal retreat could be devised for an anchorite than this lovely, sequestered glen, where the hurrying Coquet stays its troubled current beneath precipitous cliffs, clothed with trees that spring from every chink and crevice of the stone; and from an overhanging grove of stately oaks above, a runlet of the purest water comes rippling down.