‘We were lying off the coast of Norway,’ said the admiral, ‘and our host here in his armed galliot, with the Lion of Scotland at the main, was never tired of cruising about in search of adventures. He was Admiral of Scotland, as I of France; but whilst I waited for fortune, I think he followed the jade and grasped her by the hair. Some pirates had fired a village and were carrying off the inhabitants, when your warden here caught the knaves, red-handed, in the bay;--we make short work with these gentry at sea, where ropes are so convenient, and he strung them up to the yard-arm by dozens, like Normandy apples on a tree. The poor captives were too rejoiced to go back to the ashes of their dwellings; but a breeze springing up from the land, our friend here was obliged to make sail, carrying off, inadvertently, two or three trifles belonging to the village; amongst others, a fair girl with blue eyes and golden hair, who had once inhabited the principal house. I was on board the galliot some six weeks afterwards at an entertainment given by our host, where we drank nearly as much wine as we are like to do to-night, and this fair lass filled my cup and emptied her own, nothing loth, as though she relished her wine and her company. “But shall you not send her back?” said I to my host, seeing that she had been already six weeks on board. “Shall you not send her back before her friends lose patience and a complaint is made at Court, and a coil, all for a pair of merry eyes and a wisp of yellow hair?” “Not yet,” answered your warden. “Not yet. Do you not know that waifs and strays belong to the admiral?”’ A loud laugh followed d’Elbœuf’s explanation. The sentiment was quite in accordance with the company, and the point of his narrative, turning as it did on an act of illegal appropriation, was hugely enjoyed by the carousing borderers. There were two exceptions, however, to the general merriment. Bothwell looked grave, more sorrowful, perhaps, than displeased; and honest ‘Dick-o’-the-Cleugh,’ smiting a sledgehammer fist on the table that made the beakers leap again, burst out-- ‘Puir lassie! It’s ill liftin’ a bairn from the ingle, or a lamb from the fauld!’