'Nay, lad, it were an ill world did lilies only grow in abbots' gardens.'

'It is an ill world,' said Malcolm.

'Let us hear what you say in a month's time,' replied the knight,
lightly: then dreaming over the words.

A few days more, and they were riding among the lovely rock and woodland
scenery of Yorkshire, when suddenly there leaped from behind a bush three
or four young men, with a loud shout of 'Stand.'

'Reivers!' thought Malcolm, sick with dismay, as the foremost grasped Sir
James's bridle; but the latter merely laughed, saying, 'How now, Hal! be
these your old tricks?'

'Ay, when such prizes are errant,' said the assailant and Sir James,
springing from his horse, embraced him and his companion with a
cordiality that made Malcolm not a little uneasy. Could he have been
kidnapped by a false Englishman into a den of robbers for the sake of his
ransom?

'You are strict to your time,' said the chief robber. 'I knew you would
be. So, when Ned Marmion came to Beverley, and would have us to see his
hunting at Tanfield, we came on thinking to meet you. Marmion here has a
nooning spread in the forest; ere we go on to Thirsk, where I have a
matter to settle between two wrong-headed churls. How has it been with
you, Jamie? you have added to your meine.'

'Ah, Hal! never in all your cut-purse days did you fall on such an