They came that night to a place called Trows, on the English side of the border, but adjoining to the very ridge of the fells. The name of the hind who sojourned there was Jock Robson. He had a good stock both of cows and sheep, being so thoroughly a neutral man that both sides spared him, and both sides trusted him. He gave a night's grass to the driven cattle and sheep from each side, and a night's lodging to the drivers; and for this he exacted kane sheep, or a small cow, which none ever grudged him, because they found themselves so much at home in his house. He would assist either party in catching a prey, and either party in recovering it again, taking rewards from both; and, though both the English and the Scots knew of this, they never trusted him the less, for they knew that what he undertook he would fulfil, but no farther; out of your sight, out of your pay and out of your service with Jock Robson. At this yeoman's habitation our notable embassy arrived at a late hour, for, though scarcely five o'clock afternoon, it was pitch dark. They called at the door, and out came Jock with a light. The first man that he beheld was the friar. "Saint Mary's jerkin be about us!" cried Jock Robson, half in sport, half in earnest, "and defend us from our auld black minny's delegates. What seeks Lucky Church amang the hills o' Cheviot, wi' her creeds an' her croons, her trumpery, an' her lang tythes o' sheep an' kye, wild deer, and weathershaker, barndoor an' blackhag fowls? Nought for Minny Church an' her bike here, Sir Monk--naething o' our ain breeding--a' comers an' gangers, like John Nisbet's fat sheep. Howsomever, honest bedesman, I speir ye the auld question, "Come ye as friend, or come ye as fae? For sic as ye bring, sic sal ye hae!" "As thy friends do we come, uncourteous hind," said the monk; "and ask only a little of thy bread, and thy strong drink, for the refreshment of our bodies, that are like the grass on the tops of thy mountains, fading ere it be full grown, and require as thou knowest a supply of earthly refreshment as these do the showers of heaven; and also we ask of thee beds whereon we may lie down and rest: and these things thou must not refuse, for we would not that thou shouldst be to us as the children of Amalek and Moab, and those of Mount Seir." "Ye speak like a rational man, Sir Monk; but wait till I tell ye the truth, that I lurde see the cross on the handle of sword or spear ony time afore that hanging at the paunch of priest. There's mair honour an' generosity ahint the tane than the tither. But yet it shall never be said o' John Robson o' the Trows that he refused a friend quarters on a dark night. He kens ower weel that the king may come in the beggar's way. Gin ye be joking, he can stand a joke wi' ony man; but gin ye be really gaun to hand him as an Amalekite, he wad like to ken what that is, an' what lengths ye mean to gang."