The opening of Chapter I
The Scottish Knights—Journeying Homewards—The Hostelry of Norham Towers.
It was in the latter part of the fourteenth century that Sir Patrick Hepborne and Sir John Assueton—two young Scottish knights, who had been serving their novitiate of chivalry under the banners of Charles the Sixth of France, and who had bled their maiden lances against the Flemings at Rosebarque—were hastening towards the Border separating England from their native country. A truce then subsisting betwixt the kingdoms that divided Britain had enabled the two friends to land in Kent, whence they were permitted to prosecute their journey through the dominions of Richard II., attended by a circumscribed retinue of some ten or a dozen horsemen.
“These tedious leagues of English ground seem to lengthen under our travel,” said Sir John Assueton, breaking a silence that was stealing upon their march with the descending shades of evening. “Dost thou not long for one cheering glance of the silver Tweed, ere its stream shall have been forsaken by the last glimmer of twilight?”