A little above Coldstream, on the south side of the Tweed, stands the village of Wark, where a walled mound is all that remains to point out where its proud castle once stood. "We know that," some dweller on the Borders may exclaim; "but what has Wark Castle to do with the Order of the Garter?" Our answer to this question simply is, that, if tradition may be trusted, or the historian Froissart believed, but for Wark Castle, and there would have been no Order of the Garter. But this the following story will show:--It was early in the autumn of 1342 that David Bruce, King of Scotland, led an army across the Borders, and laid waste the towns and villages of Northumberland, as far as Newcastle. The invading army seized upon the cattle, the flocks, the goods, and the gold of the Northumbrians; and they were returning, overladen with spoils, when they passed within two miles of Wark Castle, which was then the property of the Earl of Salisbury. The earl was absent; but, on the highest turret of the castle, stood his countess, the peerless Joan Plantagenet, daughter of the Earl of Kent, and cousin of King Edward. Her fair cheeks glowed, and her bright eyes flashed indignation, as she beheld the long line of the Scottish army pass by, laden with the plunder of her countrymen. "Am not I a Plantagenet?" she exclaimed--"flows not the blood of England in my veins?--and shall I tamely behold our enemies parade the spoils of my country before mine eyes? Ho! warden!" she continued, in a louder tone, "send hither Sir William Montague." Sir William was the brother of her husband, and the governor of the castle. "Behold!" said she, sternly, as the governor approached, and pointing towards the Scottish army. "Is it well that we should look like imprisoned doves upon yon rebel host? Or shall ye, Sir Governor, discharge your duty to your sovereign, if ye strike not one blow for England and revenge?" "Fair sister," returned the knight, "ere an hour after nightfall, and the cry, 'For England and the Rose of Wark!' shall burst as the shout of death upon the ears of our enemies. A troop of forty horsemen wait but my word to become the messengers of vengeance." "Good, my brother," she replied, while her former frown relaxed into a smile; "and each man who hath done his duty shall, on his return, drink a cup of wine from the hands of Joan Plantagenet." Darkness began to gather round the turrets of the castle, and on the highest the gentle figure of the countess was still indistinctly visible; now walking round it with impatient steps, and again gazing eagerly to obtain another glance of the Scottish army, or counting the fires which sprung up along the lines where it had encamped for the night, when Sir William and forty of the garrison, mounted on fleet steeds, sallied from the gate of the outer wall. "Our ladye speed ye, gallant hearts!" said the fair Joan, as she beheld them sweep past like a dark cloud on their work of blood.