It was a beautiful autumn morning, and every thing around me seemed in unison with the lightness of my own heart. A warm summer had brought on an early harvest, and every where the grain had been hastily reaped and gathered by the husbandman, who trembled at the rapid approach of an irresistible foe. A strong fragrance arose from the fresh morning earth; the sunshine was warm, yet tempered by the cool breeze that came from the azure waters of the Lesser Belt, that stretched away into dim and far obscurity on our right. In our rear lay Assens with its castle, and on our left the landscape spread out in long and verdant vistas, tinted by dun autumnal hues; its faded green being interspersed by newly ploughed fields of rich brown land, the furrows of which glistened in the sun, while the water left in them by the recent rains, glittered in long and silvery lines. From these the sun exhaled a hazy vapour, making somewhat obscure the more distant objects, and even those which were nearer at hand. Thus, at times, we saw in opaque outline the sturdy figure of a well-fed Danish boor, who was turning up the glistening soil with a plough of ancient fashion, drawn by two fat brindled kine, with curving horns and switching tails, around which the clouds of gnats were dancing; and there, between the stilts of his plough, the clod-pated boor would pause, and gaze at us with lack-lustre eyes as we marched past, four hundred strong, with our tartans waving, our arms and appointments glittering in the sun, while the hoarse drums rattled, and the wild war-pipes poured a Highland quick-step to the morning wind; for four hundred bare-kneed clansmen was a sight for a boor of Funen to remember, and describe to his grandchildren in after years to come. "You are still looking after that blue skirt and black feather," said Ian, just as the queen and her group of attendants disappeared among the vapour far in front; "I pray you, kinsman, keep such vagaries as love out of your head." "Love is an affair of the heart, Ian, and the head has nothing whatever to do with it." "The greater is the pity, Philip; but allow me to advise----" "You consider me a lover, and yet think I will take advice. Whoever heard of a lover that did so?" "It is too true; but I hope you are not yet come to that. Love and its sentimentality are all nonsense in a true man of the sword." "Ian!" I exclaimed; "and Moina----" He coloured, and haughtily shook his eagle's plume.