PART III

I

On the fourteenth day of July in the year of our Lord, 1486, in the dark of the night between two o'clock and four, the Young Lovell took the Tower of Cullerford, setting fires all round it and beneath it and driving out all its inhabitants. On the seventeenth, a little before six in the morning, he stood on the height of the White Tower and looked down into Castle Lovell. This was a very still dawn, the sun being already risen, for it was near midsummer. The sea was a clear blue, and in a sky as clear that sun hung, round and pale gold. To the eastward, towards the seas called The Lowlands, were several monstrous grey shapes, going up into the heavens like tall columns in a church and twisting in a writhing manner as if they had been pallid serpents in an agony. They advanced towards one another as if they had been dancers. Separated again and so ran before the pale sun, that they appeared to be sentient beings. But, waterspouts such as these, far out to sea, were no very unfamiliar sight in those parts during hot weather and no man heeded them very much.

The better to have a sight of this Castle of his--for the great courtyard was occupied with many hovels, so that even from on high it was difficult to see who there was moving--the Young Lovell mounted upon the parapet of the battlements and stood looking down. He was all in his light armour, for it would fall to him to be very active that day, so that he had steel only upon his chest, his arms, and the forepart of his thighs, shins, and feet. In such accoutrement he could spring very easily over a wall five foot in height, and his round helmet was a very light one of black iron surmounted by a small lion's head.

This Castle that he now looked down upon was a very fair great Castle. The battlements which were a circle of nearly a quarter of a mile, had in them three square towers of three stories each and two round ones of two, the peaked roofs of all these towers being of slate. In the centre of the space enclosed by the battlements rose up the keep, a building of four stories, four round towers being at each corner that spread out at the top with places for pouring down lead, Greek fire, or large stone bullets upon any that should assault those towers. But, in between the keep and the battlements, there had gradually grown up a congeries of hovels like a dirty thatched town. The Young Lovell had never liked this in his father's day, but then he had been the son and had had no say in these matters.

This state of things had arisen, although the tenure of the lands appertaining to the Lovells was as follows: that is to say, that in time of war each of the outer towers should be manned by able-bodied fellows from the one hundred and twenty-seven hamlets, villages, townships, and parishes that the Lovells owned. Thus, giving on the average five capable tenants to each of these, there should have been six hundred men to hold the outer walls, being forty men to each of the towers in the walls and two hundred and eighty for the battlements between. The inner keep should in such a case be held by the best men-at-arms and the knights and the squires that a Lord Lovell should have about him. And the tenure of the six hundred bondsmen from those hamlets and parishes was such that, by giving their services for indefinite periods during times of war for the defence of that Castle, they were excused all further services, or service in any other parts. For it was held, that the defence of that Castle was very necessary for the protection of the realm from the false Scots if they should take Berwick and so come down into England by that way.

That had been the original tenure, but by little and little, when the Percies had had those lands of the Vescis by the treachery of Bishop Anthony Bek, they had begun to make changes in these tenures, desiring to have men to accompany them upon journeys whether against the Kings of England or Scotland, as suited their humour. So that in many townships and parishes the Percies bargained with their bondsmen for so many days' service in the year and rent-hens and other things. And this the bondsmen had agreed to readily enough. For, on account of the perpetual takings and re-takings of the town of Berwick by the Scots and the English, there was never any knowing when they might not be called in to defend that Castle for a year's space at a time, and so their farmings would go to rack and ruin, and their towers, barnekyns and very parish churches lie undefended at the mercy of the false Scots. And when the Lovells had bought these lands of the Percies they had changed the tenure still more, not so much because they desired to ride upon journeys, for by comparison with the Percies, they were stay-at-homes, but because, as a family, the Lovells were greedy of money and desired rather the payments of rents and the service of men in their own fields than much military doings.

So they had had to hire men-at-arms by the year or for life. Thus, in that Castle, which had been meant to be defended by six hundred men upon varying services, sleeping on the floors of the towers, or here and there as they could, the Lovells would have a certain number of men-at-arms, but seldom more than two hundred and fifty that dwelt there in the Castle. And because these men-at-arms would have wives and children and kith and kin, or they would not stay there, they could not sleep to the number of many families in these towers, whether round or square, that went along the battlements. Some of them, it is true, took these towers for homes, making great disorder, keeping them very foul and filthy, shutting up the meurtrieres, or slits for arrows, in order to keep out draughts, and much unfitting that Castle for defence when sieges came. For there, in those towers which should be places of defence, there would be warrens of children crying out and shrieking women. And other men-at-arms had built them hovels between the battlements and the keep, building with mud and roofing with rushes, so that all that space was like a disorderly town with little streets and sties for pigs and middens and filthy water that ran never away.

Thus this place had become a source of manifest danger, but the Young Lovell's father would not clear out all these places, because to him they were a source of much profit, for he employed the women and children and the hangers on and rabble to work in his fields all the year round, and so he had much money by that means. But because he recognized that his Castle was thus in some danger--for any enemy that won on to the battlements might, by casting down a few torches, set all these roofs on fire, and so the inner keep would stand in the midst of a furnace and all those people within the battlements be burned and slain like rats in a well--the old Lord Lovell had determined to make a safe place for himself and for the money that he and his father had hoarded up, being a very vast sum. So he had hired to come to him out of France an esquire called La Rougerie, being the son of the man that the King Louis XI of France used to build all his fortresses. So this La Rougerie had considered very well the situation and extent of this Castle that upon three faces was thundered upon by the seas at high tide. Then that La Rougerie perceived at about ten yards from the North-east end of the Castle, a crag of rock well in the sea even at high tide, in shape like a dog's tooth and nothing useful except to gannets, and not even to them of much use, for they would not build their nests so near the Castle. So this La Rougerie had advised that Lord Lovell that he should build upon that rock a great slender but very high tower, with walls of stone six yards in thickness. For the first eighty feet of its height there should be no openings at all, not so much as slits for the firing of arrows. And in the windowless chambers there the Lord Lovell should keep his treasure walled up. And above these there should be rooms for the guards with arrow holes in the form of crosses, and above these fairer rooms with somewhat larger windows, where the Lord Lovell and his family might retire, if so be his Castle should be taken, and above these dwelling rooms should be attics and granaries where gunpowder and ammunition should be stored and arrows and the quarrels of cross-bows, and there the sakers should be kept so that they should not rust upon the battlements in time of peace. And there were pulleys for hauling up these cannons on to the battlements above. Seven of these sakers there were that could cast a bullet weighing thirty pounds of stone or fifty of iron, in full flight into the furthest part of that Castle upon which those battlements looked down as a church steeple looks into the graveyard. For this tower was intended solely for the protection of that lord and his people in case any enemy should take the Castle itself. They would retreat there by a little narrow drawbridge giving into a very little door at the foot of the tower, being thirty feet long, and over a piece of sea that by nature of the currents, and by reason that the Frenchman hollowed out the rocks, ran there almost tempestuously if there were any wind at all, which happened on most days in these parts. And once there, the Lord Lovell could thunder upon his Castle thus taken by enemies with cannon balls of stone and iron, with arrows and with iron bolts shot by arbalists. There could not any inch of that Castle go unsearched, for the battlements were one hundred feet above the keep itself.

This then was the White Tower upon which the Young Lovell stood. Up to the seaward side of this tower he had come from a boat, just before sunrise, climbing up iron spikes that were inserted in the mortar for that purpose, and coming to a very small door in the guard room. This tower had been held for him by Richard Bek, Robert Bulman, and Bertram Bullock, who had been its captains, and dwelt there in his father's day, being much trusted by the old Lord Lovell. These esquires, with ten men, had held this tower very stoutly against them of the Castle that could in no wise come to them. To them had resorted ten or fifteen other stout fellows, that had slipped in over the drawbridge or came there by climbing up the spikes of the seaward wall. They victualled themselves how they could from the sea; but indeed they had food enough within the tower of the old lord's storing, except that at first they lacked of fresh meat, which in the summer time was a grievous thing.

What the Young Lovell could not tell was how many men they of the Castle had, for some reported that they had as few as a hundred and eighty, and others as many as three hundred. How that might be it was very difficult to say, for there was a constant coming and going between Castle Lovell and Cullerford and Haltwhistle, as well as Wallhouses, where the evil knight, Henry Vesey, had his men. In short, if they had withdrawn all their men into Castle Lovell they might have three hundred well armed between them. And this the Young Lovell thought might be the case, for when he had taken the tower of Cullerford there had been very few men there, or none at all. So he judged that Sir Simonde Vesey would have been forced by agreement to withdraw all his men from Haltwhistle to the defence of that Castle if Sir Walter Limousin had agreed to leave Cullerford defenceless. And without doubt, too, the Vesey of Wallhouses would have his men there as well. Thus there might be as many as three hundred stout fellows there, and that might make the adventure a difficult one, for the Young Lovell had not gathered any more men himself, though what he had were mostly very proved fighting men, there being five knights that were his friends, twenty-seven esquires, one hundred and twenty of his own men, and those the best, and one hundred and seventy that were the picked men of his friends and of the Lady Margaret of Glororem.

So he had gone up to the battlements to see how many men he could observe in that Castle. But because he could not very well see between the openings in the battlements, he seized his chance and sprang on to the very top of the stones. He had observed the watchman on the keep below him. This man walked regularly from side to side, keeping his watch, and at each turn he would be gone regularly for as long as you could count ninety-eight. So, in the absence of that watchman, he stood there and looked down.

But until he stood there many things had gone before; there were so many people active about his affairs. There were the Bishop Palatine, Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, the old Princess of Croy, the Lady Margaret, the Earl of Northumberland, the bondsman Hugh Raket, and the people in the Castle themselves. And all these ran up and down that county of Northumberland upon the Young Lovell's affairs.

Let us consider them in that order.

First there was the Bishop Palatine, John Sherwood. He did not stir himself much. Nevertheless he sent a messenger to the people of the Castle--the Knights of Cullerford, Haltwhistle, and Wallhouses, as well as the Decies. He warned them that he had given his full absolution to the Young Lovell, and had accepted his homage as a tenant-in-chief of the See of Durham. He commanded them, therefore, on pain of absolution, to evacuate the Castle and lands of that lord. Those in the Castle replied with an assurance of their ready and prompt obedience to the Prince Bishop. They said that they would immediately set the Young Lovell in possession of all such lands and emoluments as he held as tenant-in-chief of the Palatine see. They would do it immediately upon his producing to them the title deeds and charters of such lands of his. For, as matters were, they did not know which of his lands and townships he held of the Prince Bishop and which of the King, their most dread lord. As for his holdings from the King, those they could not, nay, they dare not, surrender; for these had been adjudged to them by a writ fouled in the court of the Warden of the Eastern Marches. That might be a small matter in itself, but, in addition to the assigning of the lands to themselves, there went certain huge fines to the King, as was fit and proper. At that moment they were very ready to surrender their own holding of the Castle, but they could not themselves pay the fine to the King, for they had not so much money amongst them. Supposing, therefore, that the Young Lovell held that Castle of the King, they would be guilty of high treason if they surrendered it without paying those fines, and they could not pay themselves, neither could they have any security that the Young Lovell would do so.

So they said they would very willingly surrender all the lands that that lord held of the Palatine see as the Young Lovell should produce to them his charters and show which was which.

This was a very cunning answer, for by professing to be so ready to surrender at the command of the Bishop that prelate was precluded from proceeding to their instant excommunication which he would have done. That would have caused at least half of their men, if not a greater proportion, to fall away from them, for there was a sufficiency of piety left in the North parts. Moreover, as against that answer, the Bishop was advised that he could not, as he would willingly have done, send his own forces with the Young Lovell against the Castle. For it was true enough that, until the Young Lovell could appeal against that judgment of the Lord Percy's, those false knights held a certain part of his lands in the interests of the King, so that the Prince Bishop could not well war upon them.

As for the Young Lovell's deeds and charters they were hidden up by the Knight of Haltwhistle in his tower at that place, so that, for the moment, he could by no means come at them and it was difficult for the Bishop's advisers to say how he might have them again. For they had not even any certain evidence that those muniments were at Haltwhistle. The Young Lovell had the news of Elizabeth Campstones, his old nurse, and she was a prisoner in the Castle. It was true that the lawyer Stone had by that time come round to the side of the Young Lovell, and he was assured that those charters and deeds had been removed to the tower at Haltwhistle. Still he had not seen this done, for they had gone at dead of night.

Therefore the Bishop wrote another letter to them of the Castle, saying he was assured that they and no others held all those deeds and summoning them immediately to surrender. To this the Decies answered that he had not those deeds and papers: that they were very certainly not in that fortress as far as he commanded it: that he would very willingly surrender them, but he did not know where they were. He imagined that they might be in the White Tower over which he had no control.

The lawyer Stone said that that might very well be the truth that was in the Decies' mind. For that ignorant fool was mostly heavy with wine. The evil Knight of Wallhouses had counselled the others that they should make the Decies commander in name of that Castle at the very first, so that if any penalties should fall on any heads for the seizure it should be on the Decies'. Moreover, they had removed the muniments without telling the Decies, so that they might the more easily be rid of him when it served their turn.

Thus the Bishop's advisers said that here was a very difficult and lengthy matter to deal with. For if the Bishop should write to any one of those cunning people for those deeds he would immediately, or beforehand, pass them on to the other and say he could not surrender them since he had them not. If on the other hand he wrote to them all at once they would give the deeds to their wives or to some safe person and so make the same answer. So they must issue writs against all the county at the same moment.

So far the Bishop had got in those fourteen days. In the meantime it was the turn of the Knight of Lyonesse.

This Sir Bertram rode well attended to the Castle of Warkworth to talk with the Earl of Northumberland and to lay before him all the truth of that matter, and how the King did not wish that the North parts should be enraged against him. And at first the Earl treated this Cornish knight with little courtesy. But very soon that Sir Bertram showed to the Earl a paper that he had of the King to empower Sir Bertram to remove the Earl from the wardenship of the Eastern Marches if the Earl would not do all that Sir Bertram bade him. And Sir Bertram proved to the Earl how necessary it was, the King's purse being at that time in no good condition, to win the goodwill of the great lords of the North. He said that the Earl might take all that he could get from the poorer people, but the nobles he must keep his claws from.

Then the Earl agreed with Sir Bertram upon that matter and they set their heads together to see what they might do. And here again it was no easy matter to act by course of law. For there was no doubt that the Earl had given his judgment against the Young Lovell, and there was no process that he knew of by which he could reverse a judgment that he had once given. The Young Lovell must make an appeal to the King in Council and that was a long process. The Earl was willing--though not over-willing--to call out his own ban and arriere ban and to take Castle Lovell by due course of siege. But, if he did that, he must kill utterly the Decies, the two other knights, Sir Henry Vesey of Wallhouses, and the two sisters of the Young Lovell. Moreover, to do as much, the Earl must draw off a great number of his men, and he did not trust some of his neighbours over much. Also, if any one of those persons escaped he or she would have cause to begin endless lawsuits against the Percy for slaying the others or even for taking the Castle from them. For they had his own writ for holding it. Moreover, the Young Lovell would by no means hear of the Percy's laying siege to his Castle. For all that Sir Bertram could say, he declared that if the Percy did this he would fall upon the Percy's forces with his own men. He said that, in the first place it would be black shame to him; in the second, the Percy must needs bang Castle Lovell about more than he himself would care to see, before ever he came in; and finally the Young Lovell shrewdly doubted whether the Percy would ever come out again once he was in.

In the same way the Young Lovell would have no men of the Percy to help him in the attack on his Castle, for he would not trust the Earl of Northumberland. Thus the Knight of Lyonesse did very little of what he was most minded to do. For he wished not only to help the Young Lovell and so make him a friend to the King, but he desired to reconcile him with the Earl of Northumberland that there might be peace in the North parts. However, Sir Bertram achieved this much, that the Young Lovell would let the Lord of Alnwick be in peace if the Lord of Alnwick would let him be, and that was something gained, for at first the Young Lovell had declared that he would try it out with the Percy as soon as he had achieved his first enterprise. But the Percy sent him a very courteous apology, saying that he had delivered his judgment against the Young Lovell only because he must do so as a justice according to the law as the lawyers advised him and that now he was very sorry that he had done it.

For now the raider Gib Elliott was boasting in all the market towns that he had access to, saying that he had held the Young Armstrong prisoner for three months and had ransomed him in Edinburgh. This Elizabeth Campstones, his foster-cousin, had got him to do, sending him word by a little boy and the promise of fifty French crowns. And indeed he was very glad to do it, since it might not only cause strong fellows to resort to him for the renown of it, but it might gain him the friendship of the Young Lovell, which would be a good thing for his widow when he came to be hanged at Carlisle.

And everybody was very glad of that rumour--the Bishop Palatine because it was more to the credit of the Young Lovell whom he supported; the Earl of Northumberland and Sir Bertram of Lyonesse, because it afforded them an excuse for writing broad letters to the King and his Council, asking that the former judgment given by the Earl might be reversed because of the perjury by which it was obtained. The Young Lovell was glad of it too. He thought that it was better for his bondsmen that they should not believe that their lord had spent three months gazing on a fairy woman. For that otherwise they would believe and that it was some make of sorcery, for all that the Bishop had given him absolution. The Young Lovell considered that it is not always good for the lower orders, set in their places by God, to know truths apart from the truths of Holy Church. For the lower orders have weak brains wherein too much truth is like new wine in feeble bottles.

But the Knight of Lyonesse, who had been bidden by King Henry, if he could, to establish himself in the North parts with lands and worship, and to do it, if possible, without calling upon the King to pay for it, went upon another enterprise before June was fourteen days old. For on all hands he heard that the Lady Rohtraut of Castle Lovell was the richest dowager for lands in all Northumberland, and by the disposition of his mind he was not desirous of marrying a young girl that might make a mock of him or worse. Moreover, he heard that the Lady Rohtraut was a fair enough woman of forty-three, with a good temper if she were well-used and not dishonoured, and that he thought he could do well enough. So he was doubly anxious to be of service to the Young Lovell, for, the more he heard of it, the more he was certain that this lady would make a good match for him, and that so he would please King Henry.

For her lands were broad and mostly fertile for the North; her Castle at Cramlin would be a very strong Castle after the Young Lovell had finished the repairs to it at his own expense and it stood very handy at the entrance into Northumberland, so that with help in men from the King, he might very easily work against troubles in that part, whether they came from the North or the South.

So, being in that mind, he went after ten days to pay his devoirs to the old Princess of Croy, for, after he had dwelt with her for one day, he had considered that she desired to charge him too much for his lodging and that he could do better for himself at an inn, where he could send out for his meat and have it cooked by his own man at the common fire. He had enquired of the prices of meat in that town and found that that was so.

But now he wished that he had not done that, since he might have gained more of the old Princess's favour by paying her exorbitant prices. However, he found that that was not the case, for that Princess had so great a respect for money that she esteemed a man the more for being careful of his purse strings, even though it hurt her own pocket. So she greeted him with pleasure and said that she wished her son, Lord Dacre, had been another such.

Sir Bertram had observed a great white mule--the largest he had ever seen--to stand before her door, and she told him that she was just about to set out upon a journey. For, said she, and her face bore every sign of fury, the Young Lovell, as Sir Bertram had heard, had treated her with lewd disrespect and she was minded to read him a lesson. "Madam and my Granddam and gentle Princess," he had said to her--and she mimicked his tones with so much anger that she spat on each side of her, "my mother has languished in prison during half a year and all that time you have done nothing for her."

And now, the old woman said, she was going to do something for her daughter that the Young Lovell would never dare to do. For upon a pillion on that mule, behind her old steward, she was about to ride to Castle Lovell. No guards she would take and no bowman, and there was no other Christian in the City of Durham that dare do as much in those dangerous lands. And being come to Castle Lovell, she would release her daughter with her own hands and all alone, and what make of a boasting fool would that Young Lovell appear then!

The Knight of Cornwall, when he heard those words, bent one knee on the ground and begged that that Princess would take him with her, for he would gladly do so much for that fair lady as well as witness the Princess doing these things. The Princess looked at him sideways in a queer glance and said that he might do if he would bring no men-at-arms to spoil the fame of her feat. He answered that he had the courage for that, but he said gravely that it might be for the comfort of the Lady Rohtraut, who had not the courage of her mother and would fear to travel alone, if his men-at-arms to the number of forty followed behind them, and so, meeting them at Belford or somewhere in that neighbourhood, guarded them on the homeward road. The Princess said that he might do that.

So they rode out and in four days' time they came to Castle Lovell. The Princess was on the white mule behind her steward and Sir Bertram was on a little horse. For, although he would have presented a more splendid appearance to the Lady Rohtraut upon a charger, he did not wish to be at the charges for horsefeed for such a great animal, whereas the galloway could subsist off the grass and herbs that it found by the roadway, though all green things were by that time much withered by the drought. Such weather had never been known in the North parts.

They met with no robbers; only, as they went near the sea to avoid the town of Morpeth so that the Young Lovell should not hear of this adventure, he being at Cramlin all this time--near High Clibburn and just north of Widdrington Castle there met with them Adam Swinburn, a broken gentleman with ten fellows and would have robbed them. But when he heard how they were going to rescue the Lady Rohtraut that all the world was talking of he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. For he had never had such cause for amusement as to see this fat old woman holding on behind a lean old servingman, with a man all in silks and colours with a great brown beard upon a little horse beside her, his feet brushing the ground. And these three were going to storm a mighty Castle that no forces before ever had sufficed to take. So, when he had done laughing, he rode with them a great piece of the way, even as far as Lesbury and past Warkworth. For he said that if the Earl of Northumberland saw them he would certainly rob them and so deprive that countryside of a great jest. Sir Bertram found this Adam--who was red-headed like all the Swinburns--very pleasant company, and when they parted Sir Bertram swore that when it came to hanging that Adam he would pray the King, if he could not save his life, at least to let it be done with a silken rope.

So, on the fourteenth day of June, at eleven in the morning--and that was seven hours after the Young Lovell took and burned the tower of Cullerford--the mule being very tired and the galloway none too fresh, that company of five, men and beasts, climbed wearily up the hill to Castle Lovell. The captain of the tower called Wanshot where the gate was, let them pass, for he could not see any danger from this old woman and the man in silks. At the door of the keep the Princess slid down from her mule, and pushing the guards there in the chest with her crutch, she went past them into the great hall and the guards let Sir Bertram follow her. In the hall, and crossing it, they found Sir Henry Vesey devising beside a pillar with his sister-in-law Douce that was a little woman. The Princess with a furious voice bade this Lady Douce fall upon her knees, for this was her granddam. That the Lady Douce did, for she could think of no reason to excuse her from it.

Then the Princess Rohtraut began to call out for the keys of her daughter's room, and various men came running in as well as the Lady Isopel, that was the other grand-daughter. There was a great noise, and so Sir Bertram of Lyonesse drew Sir Henry Vesey behind a pillar, and in a low voice strongly enjoined on him to let the Lady Rohtraut go. For he said that he was the King's commissioner and that all that were in that Castle were in a very evil case, for very likely it would soon be taken and all the men there hanged. And he said that Sir Henry was in a different case from the other leaders and that he, Sir Bertram, promised to save his life and gain favour for him with the King if he would let the Lady Rohtraut go. Moreover, he whispered that, Sir Symonde his brother being dead, Sir Henry might have his lands and be free to love his sister-in-law as he listed. For the rumour went that this evil knight was over-fond of the Lady Douce, and it was in that way Elizabeth Campstones saved her life. For, when there was talk of hanging her for having talked to the Young Lovell, she told the Lady Douce that she would inform against her to her husband--which well she could do. So the Lady Douce begged her life of the others.

And after Sir Bertram had talked for a time to Sir Henry Vesey, making him those fair promises, Sir Henry sent a boy for the keys of Wanshot Tower. When he had them he begged that Princess very courteously to follow him, saying that he would take her to her daughter and so set her free. Then began a great clamour between the Ladies Douce and Isopel. The Lady Isopel said that Sir Henry should not do this, the Lady Douce that he should, for she was in all things the slave of Sir Henry, and that the Lady Isopel told her very loudly. But the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle had ridden out to see if they could have news of the Young Lovell, for they knew that he was gathering his forces to come against them.

So Sir Henry did not at all heed the clamour of the Lady Isopel, but walked very grandly before the Princess Rohtraut to Wanshot Tower, and sparks of triumph came from that hobbling old woman's eyes. So when he was come to the door on the inner side of the wall Sir Henry gave into the hands of the Princess the two keys, one of that door and one of the room where the Lady Rohtraut was. Then the Princess went into that tower, and after a space down she came again, and with her were the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones. The Lady Rohtraut took nothing away with her but the clothes she had on her back. Only in her great sleeves she had her little lapdog called Butterfly.

They went as fast as they could up the Belford road, for they were afraid of meeting with Cullerfurd or Haltwhistle. But they had only been gone a little way--the Lady Rohtraut and Elizabeth Campstones riding on Sir Bertram's galloway--when they came upon Sir Bertram's men that were riding over the lea to find him.

That was the first sight Sir Bertram had of that lady whom afterwards, to the scandal of all the North parts, he married. For he was accounted a man of very mean birth and she a very noble lady. But he made her a very good husband, doing her proper honour and very ably conducting her lawsuits, so that she had never a word to say against him.

As for Sir Henry Vesey, when the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle came back, the Lady Isopel cried out against him, calling him a false traitor. But Sir Henry said that the King's commissioner had given him very good reasons why they should let the Lady Rohtraut go. As thus: The Young Lovell, as they had known for a week, held that lady's Castle of Cramlin as well as her houses of Plessey and Killingworth and all her lands. They, on the other hand, held her title deeds, so that was all they could have. If they could have known of the taking of Castle Cramlin earlier, they might have taken it again, by going there in a hurry, but now the Young Lovell sat there, and he was a very difficult commander, and every day more men came in to his orders. They could never get him out of that Castle.

But they held that lady only in order to force her willingly to resign those very lands to them. What, then, would it avail them to hold her any longer, since, if she resigned them twenty times over, the Young Lovell would never let them go? As for threatening to slay that lady if the Young Lovell did not give them her lands, that was more than they dare, so it would enrage all that countryside against them. Even as it was, some that they had counted on as being their friends had fallen away and, if that went further, they would never be able to have fresh meat from their towers.

So Sir Henry gave them many excellent reasons for his action. The Knight of Cullerford would have grumbled against him, for his wife, the Lady Isopel, set him to it. But his brother, Sir Symonde, said he had done very well, for his wife made him say that. The Decies was drunk and took no part in that council. Moreover, they were all afraid of Sir Henry Vesey, and he treated them like children that must do his bidding.

II

Indeed they had few of them much joy in that Castle where at first they had thought to have had great mirth. Only three days before Adam Swinburn, that had sworn to stand their friend, had ridden to a knoll near at hand and had asked to have speech with Sir Symonde Vesey, who was more his friend than the others. So Sir Symonde had gone to a little window that was near the ground in the tower called Constance, and from there had spoken with him. And Adam Swinburn had said that in no way could he any longer promise to aid them, for it was grown too dangerous. He preferred to rob upon the roads. And he counselled them very strongly to make a peace with the Young Lovell who was gathering many men, all the countryside being his friends, and had sworn to hang every man of them that was a leader from the White Tower, and to put his sisters into nunneries. And he said that John of Rokehope and James Cra'ster the younger, as well as Haggerston and Lame Cresswell, who desired to make their peace with King Henry, were all of like mind with him.

It was upon his homeward journey from saying this that Adam Swinburn had come upon the Princess Rohtraut and Bertram of Lyonesse.

All these people, Cra'ster, Haggerston, Lame Cresswell, Adam Swinburn, and others had, in the earlier days of their being at Castle Lovell, held high revel there with them. They were mostly rude and boisterous gentry of very good family who, having been ruined fighting for or against King Edward IV, King Richard or King Henry, were outlawed and lived by robbery, which was also the case with Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses. And when those of the Castle had at first seemed to be triumphing these raiders had made great cause with them. They hoped that thus they might get their lands again of the King. So they had feasted there and drunk and slept in one tower or another along the walls, and had sworn to hold those towers if ever Castle Lovell was attacked.

But, by little and little, all of these gentry had wanted money, and of that those of that Castle had very little or none at all to give them. All the old Lord Lovell's money was in the White Tower, and the bondsmen and other feudal debtors of Castle Lovell refused them their dues.

These things were very sore blows to those of the Castle. They had hoped that Richard Bek, the captain of the White Tower, would surrender that money to them so that they would have been able to give some of it to those boon companions. But Richard Bek would not even answer their summonses; and when they had begged the outlaws to aid them to take the White Tower, James Cra'ster had answered courteously for the rest that they would very willingly have done it had they had wings, but they were not gannets nor yet the angels of God, and so they could not. It was the same thing when those of the Castle asked the outlaws to ride down among the bondsmen that would not pay their rent-hens. None of them would do it.

For the truth of the matter was that Adam Swinburn and the rest were too good friends of Hugh Raket, Barty of the Comb, Corbit Jock, the Widow Taylor with her seven able sons, and the rest. They were the most capable rievers that they could find to ride under their leadership into Scotland or elsewhere. Even Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, had their aid and company at times.

For the matter of that, Sir Henry Vesey, of Wallhouses, was not so very eager to aid them of the Castle; as the time went on he grew less keen about it. For what they got out of it beyond the shelter of the stone walls he could not tell.

At the first his brother and Sir Walter Limousin had promised him his share of the plunder in the Castle and the money in the White Tower. But the plunder in the Castle had been a small matter. It was not much they had got for the armour sold to Morpeth, though he had taken some of the best pieces and sent them for safety to Wallhouses; they had got very little for such furnishings and carpets as they had sold to the German at Sunderland, and the jewels, as has been told, they could not sell at all.

They had the Castle, but in it not much more than two hundred men, which was little to hold so so great a place with. Thus they could not hold it, as castles are held, as a place from which to ride out and rob in the Borders; they could not spare the men.

So, when Adam Swinburn and the others understood how that case really was, they went, one after the other, away from the towers in the wall where they had slept with their men. They went with courtesy, saying that they would come again and defend those towers if there were need of it. But the truth of the matter was that all of the fresh meat was eaten, which is a thing very unbearable in summer; the best wine was all drunk, for they had pressed heavily on the liquors in the early days; they had tired of all the serving maids that there were in the Castle; the Lady Douce was occupied with Sir Henry Vesey; the Lady Isopel was ugly and a shrew. So they had neither desirable wine nor women; not much prospect of meat nor gold, and what else should keep them? Therefore they rode away.

Then those of the Castle sat down there to wait until Richard Bek, the captain of the White Tower, should surrender, so that they might take the gold. But that was a long matter. For Richard Bek and his men had at their command a great store of the best commodities that had belonged to the late lord. He had stored them in that strong place that was made for it. Sugar even they had and pepper and pippins, and the best wine and figs in honey. They of the Castle had not even fish for Fridays or none but salted cod. But they could see Richard Bek and his men catching fish from the sea with long lines. The water did not come up far enough to let those in the Castle catch fish even at high tides; but to the foot of the White Tower which was further out it came at all times, and the Lord Lovell, under the directions of the French castle-builder, had had the rocks there hollowed away so that a boat could ride there very comfortably when the weather was not too rough. Nevertheless, over that sort of boat-house a machicolation jutted out, so that the boats of any enemy could be swamped with great stones or set burning by means of Greek fire.

Thus those in the Castle could perceive those of the Tower receiving from the sea the carcases of sheep, goats, and small bullocks, so that those men lived very well and comfortably, and there seemed little reason for their ever rendering up that place which the Lord Lovell had built very cunningly for just such an occasion. Of wheat in the Castle they had a sufficient store, and also of salt meat and stock fish.

For two of the towers in the outer wall, that called Constance and that called de Insula, after the Bishop of that name, were nothing less than the one a wheat pit and the other a brine cistern. Those towers contained a chamber each, in the upper story, but all beneath it, to the ground, was windowless space. In the brine that filled thus the tower Constance there floated the carcases of two thousand sheep, one thousand swine, five hundred goats, and five hundred oxen.

Thus they had enough of that sort of food, and in addition they had a great quantity of peas in a barn. But of fresh meat they had none at all. When they wished for it they must send for beasts to Cullerford or Haltwhistle, and on the second occasion that they did this they lost fourteen steers and a quantity of sheep and goats. For, as their men drove these beasts along by the Roman Wall, in a very lonely spot, there came springing down upon them a great number of men well armed, but with their faces blacked. These killed two of the Castle Lovell men and drove away all their cattle through a gap in the Wall towards the North. Those in the Castle thought that this had been done by Haggerston and Lame Cresswell, who were fast friends, and by Barty of the Comb and his fellows. But they had no proof of this, so they could not even fyle a bill against them in the Warden's Court. Moreover, three weeks before they had heard that a vessel was come to Hartlepool that had a number of cannon on board and more than she needed for her defence. These they desired to buy so as to try conclusions with the White Tower. They had with them at that season a Ridley of Willimoteswick as a guest. He was going by sea into Holland, and to this Ridley they confided the buying of such cannon as he could get for them from that ship as well as a great store of gunpowder, for this Ridley was a very honourable man and they could well trust him. So they gave him a hundred and fifty pounds. One or other of those knights might have gone on this errand, but by this time they were all grown very irritable and suspicious, and believed each of them that the others would work him some mischief if he went away even for a little time. For there they were kicking their heels in that fine summer weather, without comfort or occupation. They hardly dared to ride hunting without such a troop of men-at-arms as scared all the deer out of the woods, and at that season of the year they should have been riding into Scotland for their profit and to do feats of arms. Yet there they sat.

A week after that they had a letter from that Ridley of Willimoteswick to say that he had not bought their cannon and should not. For he had heard from his cousin Ridley, that was the monk Francis of Belford, how the Young Lovell was alive that they had sworn to him to be dead. Moreover, that lord had done no sorcery at all, but all that was false witnessing. Therefore Ridley of Willimoteswick counselled them very earnestly to give up that Castle to its rightful lord or he would never be their friend again. Moreover, he said that the monk Francis advised him that the hundred and fifty pounds they had given him for the purchase of cannon was no money of theirs but belonged of right to the Young Lovell. How that might be he did not know, but he was determined to buy them no cannon and to hold that money in his own hands until the rightful ownership should be determined.

Then those of the Castle cried out on the evil that there was in their world and time, and that there was neither faith nor truth in man. The heat blazed down upon them; the Castle stank, and now terror began to come into their souls so that the women wakening in the night or walking round the corners of the stony corridors would scream out suddenly. For on all hands they heard how the Young Lovell's men resorted to him and how Richard Bek had sent him basketsful of gold from the White Tower, lowering them to boats that came on his behalf in the dawn. And knowing him as well as they did, they knew that he was a very fierce and cruel man to evil-doers and destroyers of order in his lands.

Then there came those letters from the Bishop and spread dismay amongst them, for the Lady Isopel had a great dread of priests and raised perpetual outcry in the Castle, asking that it should be given up to the Bishop. So they answered those letters as best they could. Then came other letters from the Earl of Northumberland in which he reded them very strongly to give up that Castle and sue for mercy. For, said the Earl, he must now withdraw from them all his countenance and he had written a broad letter to the King in his Council praying him to reverse the judgment that that Earl had given, on false witness brought before him, against the Young Lovell.

So, upon that, they sent for all the armed men they had from Cullerford and Haltwhistle and Wallhouses, and kept men continually on the walls in arms, for they could not tell at what moment the Young Lovell might not break in upon them like a raging wolf. And at last Sir Henry Vesey said that the moment was come for them to make the best terms that they could with their kinsman, and that if they would not he would get him gone from that Castle with all his men, for who could tell at what moment that lord might not burn down Wallhouses itself? Therefore they sent a letter to the Young Lovell at Cramlin Castle where they heard that he was, saying that if he would surrender to them half his mother's lands and ten thousand pounds in gold they would give up to him that his Castle and go to live in their own houses and towers, and as for the Decies the Young Lovell might deal with him how he would.

To that letter no answer came and their messenger that bore it never came back. Fear fell still more upon them because of this silence, in which they seemed to read better than in any letter the menacing nature of their kinsman's fell spirit. And at that time they began to talk of running each to his own home, and this they would have done but that they feared that in that way the Young Lovell would fall upon them the more easily, each one in his little tower. Moreover, their own men would by no means suffer this.

These men were of several minds. Some had been promised great sums of money to come into that Castle, and they would by no means let the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle go unless they had their pay, but proposed to hold them prisoners there in the hope of receiving pay from the Young Lovell. Others thought that they could very well hold that strong Castle, beat off the Young Lovell and take the White Tower, if one of their number were elected their captain instead of these irresolute knights. Others desired to murder those knights and their ladies, and to take the jewels that they had and so to scatter about the country each to his own intent.

The men of Sir Henry Vesey were, however, faithful enough to him. He made the others pay them at least, though they could not pay their own, and even without it they would have been his very good servants, for he was always a fortunate commander in raids, being as cunning as a fox and very brave. So he knew himself to be very safe, and he assured the Lady Douce that she need have no fear, for his men would protect her as well as him. Of late he had thought much of the Lady Margaret Glororem in the way of love--more particularly when he had considered the Young Lovell to be dead. And indeed that lady had no hatred for him, since she considered him to be cunning and humorous and brave. And possibly she would have married him, for marry somebody a rich young maiden must, be her heart never so broken, in the North.

So, in that time, Sir Henry Vesey and the Lady Douce had quarrelled bitterly, for she was most jealous. But since the Young Lovell had come again they were once more friends.

So there they all sat and waited, the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle riding out daily a little way to see what news they might get. They heard that there was a great gathering of Eures, Ridleys, Widdringtons and others at Glororem, and at the neighbouring Castle of Bamborough where the King's captain gave them shelter. But of where the Young Lovell might be they could get no news; only they heard that he had left Cramlin, having with him nearly a hundred men.

Of when he would come against them they could not tell at all; they could not even tell whether their own men would fight for them. Only they thought they might; for the men of the North parts of those days were great fighters and would seldom miss an opportunity of a tulzie, unless there was a great football match to go to, and even for that generally they would contrive to leave off a fight for the time being, to resume it after the game was over. And they would do as much for a horse-race, though they preferred football, as being the more dangerous.

III

In the meantime the Young Lovell had dwelt at Cramlin. There was nothing that had not prospered with him, or that by diligence, cunning or swiftness he had not made to prosper. Daily men resorted to him and sought his service, coming in from the hills and moors and Debateable Lands, all strong and hardy men so that it was difficult to make a choice.

In a week's time it was known what his terms were. To every man that he took with him he would give three pounds English, for there would be little booty; such prisoners as they took he would ransom himself, for he wished to have them at his disposal to spare or to slay as seemed best to him. Such cattle as they took they might keep for themselves, or he would buy them at a fair price, for he understood that there were none left at Castle Lovell, where he would need them when he was the lord settled in that place. These terms he would make with every man, whether of his own men-at-arms, those he hired especially, or those that were the men of his friends. In the meantime he would find them in wine, meat, beer, bread and shelter.

In that way he had soon four hundred picked men--being one hundred and fifty archers, two hundred men-at-arms, and fifty of his bondsmen or bondsmen of his friends, men that were notable, light and swift-moving rievers.

There had joined him at Cramlin five young knights and eleven esquires that had been his friends before. These were Eures, Ridleys, Widdringtons, Riddells of Felton, Greys and Roddams, all being young men of his own generation. At first those of them that had fathers, uncles, or guardians found it a hard thing to get the consent of these to their going. For the days were past then of riding upon knight errantry, crusades, chevauchees, and other enterprises more splendid than profitable, and most fathers would not very willingly let their young men go fighting unless the gain in money much outweighed the costs. They would ride very well into Scotland if they were a great many together, so that it was a safe journey; but at that day France was lost to England. Most fathers would have gladly let their sons ride into France; such an enterprise as that of the Black Prince was still talked of. In that chevauchee he had ridden through France from north to south, from Calais to Marseilles, and had sacked more than six hundred towns and slain more than sixty thousand men, meeting with very little resistance. That had been a very chivalrous, gentle, joyous, and splendid raid. But since then France was gone; no Prince should ever make such a chevauchee again across that pleasant land; and the wars between King Henry VI and King Edward IV, and later between King Richard III and him that was then King Henry had impoverished and embittered all the older men of the North that knew things by hard facts rather than books of faicts of arms. These men were rather bitter, cynical, and perforce mercenary, than loyal, pious, and chivalric. They viewed with disfavour this enterprise that meant the attacking of a strong Castle, strongly held, with only a few men, no cannon, and not so much as a mangonel, a catapult, or such old-fashioned things. On the other hand, if their sons went to such a siege, they must go, richly caparisoned, in the best armour that they or their fathers had, and at great cost, for the Young Lovell was a great lord, and they could not let their sons and nephews come before him in ill harness. Yet, in such a desperate siege, such armour must at least be battered and dinted, the silken housings torn, the great chargers lamed, even if the young men were not killed or held for ransom in black mail or white. And even if that Castle should be taken there would be no great rewards--they could not sack it, for it would be their friend's. They would have nothing for it but praise, renown, the love of God, and the approval of Holy Church, as well as some plenary indulgences. But these were all things that filled no bellies and brought no cattle home.

Nevertheless, as from the first news of Young Lovell's home-coming the days went on, there came every day fresh news of how blind Fortune held her wheel still and favoured that lord. Those elders heard how, as it seemed, miraculously, he had taken Cramlin and held his mother's broad lands; how the Bishop had blessed and knighted him; how the King's commissioner hastened to do him service, and bent before him, and the Earl of Northumberland at his side. Then they heard of men-at-arms flocking to him, and, at last, how the White Tower was held for him that had in it one hundred and forty thousand pounds in gold and many rich stores. And they heard how, in boats, during four days at dawn, Richard Bek had sent him six thousand pounds, so that he could very sumptuously entertain any knights that came to him. Then, indeed, it seemed to these elder men that it might be profitable then, and in the future, to aid this favourite of the blind goddess--for some of them had learning enough to have heard that Fortune is blind, though many had not.

And all this while their sons and nephews and bastards pressed them unceasingly for leave to go on this enterprise, saying that it was not easy to have experience in the taking of strong castles, and that the Young Lovell was a leader that it would be great glory to serve under. So the elders yielded under these considerations, doing what they would not for the love of God at the bidding of Holy Church, or for the sake of oppressed chivalry. Therefore, the monk Francis, who heard of many of these discussions, and took part in one or two where the lords were in easy reach, said that those were very evil times where no thought was of anything but money, and God so nearly forgotten. And he said that before long a great calamity should fall upon England; nay, that the saints of God must soon leave hovering over a country so vile.

Nevertheless, afterwards he somewhat changed his note when he saw how many young knights of good family came to join the Young Lovell. These were, as has been said, five knights and eleven esquires of the families of Eures, Ridleys, Widdringtons, Riddells of Felton, Greys and Roddams. Amongst them was one older than the others, being Sir Matthew Grey, that had seen the French wars under Edward IV. Of him the Young Lovell was very glad, for he intended to divide his forces into two camps, and needed a commander.

So, on the flat ground around the Castle of Cramlin arose many tents, and it was like a fair in the sunshine on the short and baked grass. The Lady Margaret of Glororem had had made in the city of Durham a great tent all of fair silk, in the green and vermeil colours of the house of Lovell, and from that city the Young Lovell had had brought many vessels of silver, salt-cellars and great dishes and goblets that he had bought of a Canon of Durham, having more than he needed. A silversmith had wrought on them very swiftly the arms of that lord, and it was his intention to leave those furnishings in Castle Cramlin, that his mother might be fairly served when she came there.

They set up that tent on the eleventh of June, and were two days arranging the banquet that there was given by the Young Lovell. Many fair ladies came from Durham and Morpeth and the Castles around, and cooks came, and scullions and servers, for those knights and esquires lent to the Young Lovell their pages, that they might go to all the places around and deliver his invitations. Those ladies might all sleep in that Castle, for by that time he had bought for it, out of the gold that Richard Bek had sent him, furniture, hangings, beds a many and all such silken stuffs as should make it fair. This he did to be an honour to his mother when she came there.

So all those esquires and knights, and the ladies and the Lady Margaret, and the Young Lovell sat to take their dinner in the silken tent. That banquet began at noon, and at seven in the evening they still sat at the board. Five courses that meal had, each of sixty dishes, each dish being different, so that it was agreed that such a banquet had never been given in those parts, unless it was one that the Earl of Warwick gave upon the occasion of the marriage of his daughter. The sides of that tent were held up upon gilded staves, for it was very hot and breathless weather, so that many men said a storm must soon come. The haze of heat ran all across that champaign country; the high banks of the river were all clothed with green and whitened here and there with elder. The men-at-arms marched before them in shining steel; the bowmen in green, each with the badge of the esquire or knight that he served upon his shoulder; and the bondsmen, having each a little target, a great sword, and a very tall pike with a hook at its end. Upon these pikes they could set torches the better to put fire upon roofs or in at the upper windows of peel towers. So, before their eyes, the bowmen set up targets and shot at them for their entertainment, and they passed these hot hours very joyously. When the cool of the evening was come, the Young Lovell took Sir Matthew Grey apart into a grove beside the river.

He told that knight very carefully how he would have him dispose the men that should be under his command, for he should not see those men again before they met victoriously in the Castle. Sir Matthew Grey listened to him and said that that was a very good scheme and he would observe it carefully. So, just as the young moon set, Sir Matthew Grey with all the men-at-arms, all the bowmen and fifty of the rievers, making in all two hundred and fifty men, having with him all the knights and esquires as well as the Young Lovell's most trusted esquire, Cressingham, that knew very well the ways into Castle Lovell--all rode over the whiteness of the river at the ford and were lost beneath the light of the stars. Then such of the ladies as would sleep at Castle Cramlin went into it; the others had already ridden away with their attendants. The cooks and scullions and serving men began to take down that great silken tent, and the men-at-arms that remained struck those that had sheltered their former comrades. The Young Lovell begged the Lady Margaret very courteously that she would walk with him in the grove of the river where he had talked with Sir Matthew Grey. The white small moon looked in on them through the branches; the river ran very swiftly.

There walking, he told once more to that lady very carefully his plan for the taking of Castle Lovell, for it was such things that she heard of more willingly than of any others. Sieges, tourneys, journeys, feats of arms and dangerous quests, of these she was never tired of talking; she loved them better than putting on the newest hood made after a Queen's model of France.

This plan for the taking of Castle Lovell was as follows, and it was to get under way at the hour of five on the sixteenth day of June ---- that was to say, in three days' time. There were three entries to be made into that Castle within five minutes, one through the great gate that was beneath the tower called Wanshot: one through the passage coming up beneath the flagstones in the men's kitchen that was built into the wall between the towers Constance and de Insula; the third was to take place from the White Tower over the little drawbridge that connected that hold with the Castle.

The first entry, that through the great gate, was to be conducted by the Young Lovell's esquire Cressingham that well knew the ways into the Castle. This was a very dangerous enterprise, or one with no danger at all as it turned out. Besides the esquire Cressingham there were to be engaged upon it four young knights greedy of glory--Sir Michael Ridley, Sir Thomas Eure, the Lady Margaret's cousin, Sir Hugh Widdrington, and Sir Edward Riddell of Felton. It was in this way. There were usually five guards at that great gate, four to man the meurtrieres and one to go to the grille; the space there was scarcely sufficient for more, nor were more necessary, so strongly was the gate protected from above by machicolations, stone balls and bowmen. So there were usually no more than five men there. Now those four knights, under the command of the esquire Cressingham, covering their armour completely with peasants' clothes and cloaks, should go up to that gate in the quiet of the morning with sacks on their backs. In these sacks they should have a good store of last year's walnuts and apples--though it was difficult enough to find these in June, yet some they had found that had ripened very late the year before. So these pretending peasants should say that they had heard that there was a great dearth of agreeable meats in that Castle, and that they were come with some fruits for sale from the neighbourhood of Sunderland. Then, very surely, those guards would desire to see those fruits, for it was certain that they all in the Castle were thirsting for such things. The false peasants should make to open a sack, and it would be a very easy thing to let the contents of one whole one fall to the ground and run rolling here and there. Very surely, too, then those guards would bend down to pick up those fruits and nuts, for it is not in human nature to withstand such a temptation.

The four knights and the esquire Cressingham should have their daggers privily ready under their cloaks and so they might very easily stab each of those guards in the back of the neck, and if they did that with skill they might slay them so peaceably that they would speak never a word. It was in that way that the Spaniards won the city of Amiens from the French a little later.

If then those guards died without tumult the esquire Cressingham should go quietly to the within-side of the gateway and wave a little cloth up to those on the White Tower. If, on the other hand, they make a noise, that outcry in itself should serve for a signal. The danger of this enterprise was this, that if the Castle was at all diligently guarded there would be in the chamber above that gate a great company of archers under a captain, and if those guards should make an outcry the archers might very easily come down and work some mischief to those knights. Moreover, the herse or portcullis was worked from that upper chamber by means of pulleys and chains. Thus the archers there if they knew what was passing below might let down that portcullis and thus not only should they catch those knights like rats in a trap, but they should prevent others entering in.

To guard against this the Young Lovell gave the following directions: In the first place, as soon as those guards were over-mastered or slain, one of the knights should close the door that let men down from the upper chamber. A very strong door it was, at the bottom of narrow steps, so that it would be no easy task to break through it. Thus, if those archers desired to come at those knights they must run along the battlements and down by the steps of the tower called de Insula, and that would take time. As for the portcullis, there was across the great gate a very strong and stout balk of wood, running in bolts. This they should take out and set upwards in the slots down through which the herse descended. Once that was there there should be no closing that way. This the Young Lovell knew very well, for once when he had been a boy he had done it out of devilment to plague the captain of the archers.

Upon the sign from the esquire Cressingham, or upon hearing a tumult in the gate house, the Young Lovell, from the top of the White Tower, should fire cannon shots into that Castle, and the firing of those shots should serve a double purpose. In the first place they should be for a signal to all the others to go forward; in the second, they should serve to frighten and distract the archers in that upper chamber if that were necessary.

Upon those sounds at once the men in the tunnel should issue out into the kitchen and fall upon the hovels that were around the keep and slay all that would not yield and afterwards set fire to the hovels themselves, for that would make not enough flame to burn down the keep but enough to smoke out all that were in it. Those that were in that tunnel were to be the Castle Lovell bondsmen, Hugh Raket, Barty of the Comb, and others. They should have introduced themselves secretly and under cover of the night into Corbit Jock's Barn that stood, as had been said, against the Castle wall, not fourteen feet from where that tunnel came into the grassy mound. Under cover of that same darkness Sir Matthew Grey, the elder knight, should have hidden himself with one hundred men-at-arms and esquires, all mounted, and one hundred bowmen in the houses of the township of Castle Lovell and in the barns, some of which were not twenty yards from the Castle gate. And upon the firing, those bowmen from behind the middens and the hillocks should rain arrows at those that were on the battlements, and Sir Matthew Grey with his men-at-arms should ride furiously up to the gate that should be kept open for him by those five knights, and a little afterwards those bowmen should follow, putting up their bows and drawing their hangers and dirks.

Then, when all these engaged the attention of those of the Castle, the Young Lovell, giving up his firing of artillery, should issue fiercely from the White Tower over the drawbridge with the twenty or thirty men that that tower held, and he could not well doubt that that should be the coup de grace to those of the Castle. Then he would hang the Knights of Cullerford and Haltwhistle and Henry Vesey. His sisters he would put into nunneries, and the Decies send beyond the seas if the monk Francis did not claim him for the courts ecclesiastical to be broken on the wheel. But this the Young Lovell did not wish, for the Decies was his father's son.

The Lady Margaret said that that was the very properest scheme she had ever heard for the taking of a castle, part by stratagem and part by force. And they walked, devising of that scheme for a long time, beneath the night-black boughs, with the thin white moon that peeped between and the swiftness of the river below their feet. And ever the Lady Margaret was aware of a bitter grief in his tones, spake he never so hotly. Ever the Young Lovell was aware that the thought of marrying with this woman was an intolerable weariness to him, though she was gallant and fair and loving. He looked upon her face in the moonlight and saw how fair it was with the shadows of the hazel wands across it. That place was called the banks of Cramlin, and bitter banks they were to him. For there was no mark against that lady and none in those parts could be a fitting mate for him but she. And he considered how she had cherished him and helped him, and that he had no grief against her. Ever he sighed deeply and yet talked of the joy they would have in pleasaunces and in the wilderness hawking, in devising, in the stables, picking the wild flowers in spring, watching their husbandmen with the ploughs, sitting in the little chambers before the fire in winter, and at bed and board. And ever the Lady Margaret put aside the talking of those things and talked of firing cannon into Castle Lovell with the bitter tears on her lids. She knew him so well she read his heart.

So with a heavy sigh he kissed her on the cheek her that had been used to lie in his arms, and her tears were wet upon his lips, and in the darkness, amidst the waternoises of those Cramlin banks--for the miller had let down his sluices whilst they talked--amidst the glimmer of the birch trunks that grew with the hazels, he left her that he should never see again for many weary years. Then, with his fifty bondsmen, he rode north into the black night beyond the ford.

It was three in the morning when the Young Lovell came to Cullerford Tower, and it was very dark. By daylight that baleful place upon the open moor was smoking to the sky, and that was not much more difficult to do than cracking a walnut, though a very great and square tower it was, more like the keep of a castle than a peel, though it followed those lines. Forty-seven paces it was in length and twenty across, the walls being three yards deep in solid stone. It was entered from the ground by a door like that of a barn, and indeed the lowest story was no more than such a barn, containing no rooms nor partitions, and serving, in dangerous times, to store wheat, cattle or whatever the Knights of Cullerford had that was of value. No staircase led from this story to the rooms above, but only a ladder going to a trap hatch, so that when that ladder was drawn up there was no coming to them of the tower. At that time there were no men-at-arms there at all, only several old fellows under the command of an old man called Hogarth, together with a few women and several children, and the cattle were all in the barn below them. The hay that they had lately got stood in stacks round about that tower, and a hundred yards away were nearly three hundred lambs that should have been driven to market the next day, and filled the night with their bleatings, for they were but newly taken from their mothers. But so sorely did Sir Walter Limousin need money that he wished to sell them before they were ready.

The Young Lovell had with him fifty rievers mounted on little horses and fifty men-at-arms that he had taken from Cramlin, where he had left one hundred men under the command of the esquire La Rougerie, and that bleating of lambs aided those rievers to creep up to that tower door. They had the door half burst down before ever those above were aware that they had come. Then a great wail went up from those women and children in the tower, for they thought it had been the false Scots and that their deaths were near. Some old men came running up on to the battlements on the top of the tower, intending to cast down rocks and other things on the rievers that were at work upon that stout door. But the Young Lovell bade shoot so many arrows up that that handful of old men could not stay there, and very loudly he called out to them his name and titles. So an old man came to a window and said that his name was Adam Hogarth and that he had command there. So the Young Lovell bade him render up that tower, for he was in a hurry and could not stay to be gentle with them, which was the greater pity, for the number of women and children that he could hear were there by their cries. Adam Hogarth said that he would not render up that place until they had fought well for it, not to the brother of his lady and mistress or to any man. Then the Young Lovell said that he was sorry for it.

It was very dark then, but those rievers were skilful men, and whilst the Young Lovell spoke with Adam Hogarth they had that great door open and began to drive out the cattle that came willingly enough in the darkness, but it was dangerous work because of the horns. One hundred and forty-seven steers were there and nineteen cows with calves, as well as over a dozen heifers. Whilst these came out an old man at a window above that door came with a crock of boiling water and poured it out. It fell on no man, but on the backs of several bullocks that stampeded into the night and came amongst the men-at-arms that were upon horseback. This caused some confusion and the Young Lovell bade light a torch or two, and indeed there were some torches lit in that lower barn so that it showed like an illuminated caravan beneath the black shape of the tower. The stars were very fine and it was very dark just before the dawn. All the while cries went up from the women and children in the tower; so that the night was unquiet.

Then that old man came again to the window to pour out boiling water, but there was a little light behind him from the fire that he had used for the heating. The Young Lovell had a bowman ready and that man loosed an arrow. It sped invisible through the night and went in that old man's mouth and killed him there, so that he never poured any more water. The Young Lovell said that was very well shot, considering the darkness of the night, and he gave that bowman two French crowns for having done it.

Then Adam Hogarth loosed off a demi-saker that he had in an upper room. He aimed it at the Young Lovell who stood upon a little mound with a torch flaring near him. But that bullet went a shade wide, nevertheless it killed a steer, striking that beast on the cheek beside the eye. Then the Young Lovell bade put out the torches and commanded his bowmen to direct a stream of arrows against all the windows that were on that side of the tower, so that though that demi-saker sent out once more its stream of flame and spoke hoarsely, that was the last of it. For the rest of that work they could see well enough without torches; it consisted in taking mounds of hay into that barn, and when it was half filled they poured water and fat upon it so as to damp it, and a little tar. Then into that mass they cast three or four torches and so they watched it smoulder. Of flame there was very little, but the smoke and stench in verity were insupportable, and that filtered into the upper part of the tower.

Then the dawn began to point over the Roman wall and grey things appeared, and fat smoke curling up all around the doomed tower in the still air of the morning. It grew a little cold so that they must slap their arms around them, and said that that waiting was slow work. As soon as it was light enough, the Young Lovell began to count those cattle. He sent men also to drive up the hurdled lambs that had cried all night, and others to find their dams that were in charge of a shepherd in the fields beyond the Wall. The Wall began to show clear on top of a rise, running over the tops of hills and down into hollows, grey, into invisibility. Then after a time, those men brought in the sheep. They had caught that shepherd where he slept, and drove him before them, pricking him with lances so that he commanded his dogs to drive those sheep where they should go. Thus then were all the flocks and herds of Cullerford collected together in a goodly concourse, and when the Young Lovell knew that he had them all, he ordered the men-at-arms that he had brought from Castle Cramlin to drive them to that place, for he had no more need of men-at-arms.

So they went away over the moors to the north and east, going through a gap in the wall just after they were out of sight. Those sheep and cattle the Young Lovell meant for the provisioning of his mother. He thought that his sister would not need them when her husband was hanged and herself in a nunnery. So, whilst he stood and watched that fatly smoking tower from which there came a strong odour of burning grease, a great sadness fell upon him at the thought that all this profited him nothing, for he desired none of these things for his intimate pleasure. It was all for decency and good order in his lands that he did it, and to punish evildoers. So his head hung down and he sat his horse like a dying man.

It was these moods in him that the monk Francis dreaded. But the monk Francis thought he had him safe for two days or three, for he himself had urgent business in his monastery of Belford, more particularly over the affair of the hermitage of Castle Lovell. For it was reported to him that that pious hermit was really dead. During ten days he had spoken words none at all and the stench that came out of the little hole where they put in his bread and water was truly unbearable and such as it had never been before. So the monk Francis had gone to Belford to see how that might be. The Young Lovell he thought he might well leave. For with the banquet and the sending off of his troops he would be well occupied, and he had made the Lady Margaret promise to be a zealous lieutenant and see that that lord was never unoccupied till he rode on that raid. For the monk Francis considered that whilst he was upon a raid, that emissary of Satan or whatever she was would have no power over him, so ardent a soldier was this young lord.

But here he had reckoned without the obstinacy of Adam Hogarth who kept all those aged men and the women and children stifling in that fat smoke. The Young Lovell was never in greater danger. He looked down upon the ground and sighed heavily. He had it in him to ride into a far country and leave all those monotonies. But at last on the top of the tower he perceived Adam Hogarth, who held up his hands. So he knew that that tower had surrendered. Then he called out that all those in the tower might come down a ladder that they might set down from an upper window, and that they might bring down their clothes and gear and take it away with them where they would--all except Adam Hogarth, with whom he had some business. As for that Tower he meant to burn it out.

So down the ladder came thirty or forty poor people with ten or a dozen children. Their eyes were red and wept grimy tears, and they were all in rags of grey homespun, such as the poor wear, for Sir Walter Limousin and his wife were very bad paymasters, and such a collection of clouts the Young Lovell thought he had never seen in the grey of the morning. Nay, he was moved to pity at the thought that this dishonoured his kin, and to each of those poor people he gave a shilling that they might have wherewithal to live till they found other masters, and to women that had children he gave four groats. Some carried pots, some pans, and all of that ragged company filed away over the moorlands beneath the Wall, making mostly for Haltwhistle, and showing no curiosity at all, except two or three old women that had to do with Adam Hogarth.

Then the Young Lovell took Adam Hogarth down to a little grove of trees that was near the ford and asked that blear-eyed old man where his master, Cullerford, had hidden the charters and muniments of his mother the Lady Rohtraut; for he knew that there they were. Adam Hogarth said that he did not know and set his teeth. Without more words the Young Lovell had a rope brought and a slip-noose made. He sent a man up a great elm to drop the noose over a stout branch and Adam Hogarth watched him dumbly. Then the Young Lovell had that noose set round Adam Hogarth, beneath the arm-pits and three men hauled him up till he hung thirty feet high, looking down with the tears dripping out of his red eyes. So when the Young Lovell had watched him for a minute or two and he spoke no word, the lording walked away to where the womenkind of that pendard were, and asked which of them were his kinswomen. One red-eyed crone was his sister, another his wife. So the Young Lovell took that sister to where Adam Hogarth hung and pointed him out. He bade her tell him where those charters were, but she would not. Then he had Adam Hogarth let down. The rope was set about his neck and the Young Lovell bade his men haul slowly. Adam Hogarth choked in his throat and rose up to his tip-toes, but he would make no sign with his hand and his sister would not speak. Then that man was let down again and the Young Lovell said it was the greater pity, for he must bring the wife. So the other old woman was brought, and when Adam Hogarth swung the height of a man's thigh with his feet off the ground, and his legs were working like those of a frog and his face purple with the hempen collar round his neck and the knot beneath his ear so that he should not die very quickly, that old woman fell on her knees and cried out that she would tell the Young Lovell that news. So the Young Lovell cut through that rope with his sword to do Adam Hogarth greater honour, and he fell to the ground very little the worse for wear.

The old woman took the Young Lovell to a haystack where, beneath the trampled hay around it, there was a well-head locked with a great padlock. This padlock a man with a hammer knocked off, and a chain went down into that well, the well being dry. So they pulled up that chain, and at the end of it was the muniment-box of the Lady Rohtraut that the Young Lovell well knew. So when he had had the iron lid prised open with a lance-head--for without doubt the Lady Isopel wore the little gold key of it round her neck--the Young Lovell recognised that the deeds were there, for, though he had no time to read them, he knew them by their seals. Then he was well content for his mother's sake, for, though it is a good thing to have lands in actual possession, it is twice as well to have the muniments appertaining to them.

Then he bade his men get together what balks of timber and wood they could find and cast them into the hay that still burned in that lower story so that the fire might spring up, and also to take torches and cast them through the upper windows so that that tower might well burn in all parts where it was wooden. After that he called before him that Adam Hogarth and commended him for his faith to his master and commended his sister as well. And he said that that man and his sister might have for their own, to divide between them, such steers as had escaped during the stampede of the night before, as well as three bulls that were upon the upper pastures with several sheep, and some pigs and hens that were in a barn by the river and had escaped observation. And he said that Adam and his sister might dwell in that tower, after the fire had well burned it so that it could not be held as a fortress, but it would shelter them very well until he should decide whether he would hold that tower himself or till the heirs of Sir Walter Limousin should compound with him for his sister's dower. For Sir Walter, he said, was as good as a dead man. As for Adam Hogarth's wife, they might do what they liked for her, but he would give her nothing, for he held that she had not done well in betraying her master's secret, to keep which should be the first duty of a servant, man or woman. And as for his reward to Adam Hogarth, he gave him those things which would make him richer than he had ever been in his life before in order to encourage such faith as he had shown. And if he husbanded those cattle well they would increase and multiply. But Adam Hogarth said no more than "Least said is soonest mended," for he was a crabbed old man of few words.

Then the Young Lovell and his men made a breakfast of some small beer and bread that they found in that tower, and so they rode away northwards through the Wall, for it was five o'clock with the sun high and they had far to go, but their little horses would carry them well. He left two or three men to see that Adam Hogarth and his wife and sister did not seek to quench that burning. But he did not think they would, for when he looked back he could see against the pale sky the pale flames rise over the hill.

But as soon as he was gone that Adam Hogarth fell upon his wife and beat her very furiously. He said that he knew very well that that Young Lovell would never have hung him, for there was no priest there to confess him, and that never would he have betrayed that secret until after the Young Lovell had let him be shriven. So the Young Lovell must have paid him much money. Besides, he could have borne with hanging for a quarter of an hour longer and come to no harm. So he beat that woman and she screamed out, and the men that the Young Lovell had left behind roared with laughter and the tower burned.

So, when those men caught up with the Young Lovell, which they did near Fontoreen, west of Morpeth, they told him of the cunning of that husbandman. So the Young Lovell did not know whether to be more vexed with that peasant, because it was not so much love for his master as greed that made him be half-hanged, or whether to marvel that such a low fellow should have read his mind so well, for surely he would never have hanged him unshriven.

They rode on all that day until they came to Sea Houses by North Sunderland, having covered nearly sixty miles of rough country, for they went by the South Forest and past Rothbury and the high moors so that they might not be observed. Four miles from Sea Houses, it being then ten o'clock at night, the Young Lovell sent his men forward towards Castle Lovell, and in a fisherman's hut on the sounding pebbles of the sea he found the monk Francis, who was very glad to see him and glad of his news. The monk had been that day in the village of Castle Lovell and had found that the hermit was indeed dead. So he had appointed the day following at six in the evening for skilled masons to come and disinter that holy man to give him holy burial. For he thought that by that hour the Young Lovell would be well established in his Castle.

So when they had exchanged their news the lord and the monk lay down to sleep a little on a pile of nets that the fisherman heaped up for them in a corner of his hut, he himself lying outside upon seaweed with his wife. At a quarter to three he waked them and they set out upon their voyage to the White Tower. There was a good following breeze from the due south, so that they might well come to Castle Lovell in an hour or a little under. But the dancing motion of that little boat made that monk Francis very ill, which was great pity for the Young Lovell. With fasting, prayer and vigil that good monk was become very weak, though he had once been a very strong knight. He lay on the bottom-boards of that boat, and so deeply had he fainted that when they had come to the little harbourage beneath the White Tower he was insensible and they could not tell that he was not dead. So there was no getting him up the ladder of iron spikes that was all the way there was into that tower from the sea. The Young Lovell would not trust those spikes to bear the two of them or he would have carried the monk up. So he climbed up alone, and Richard Bek and the others were awaiting. But the fisherman rowed that monk straight to the shore and carried him over the sand to the township. Here in a hut he found the Lady Margaret of Glororem, who had ridden all that day and night before to come there. So she tended that monk and in about an hour he could stand again. But then there was no way of coming into that tower.

Therefore the monk Francis and the Lady Margaret went up to the little mound on which was the chapel the Young Lovell had first watched his harness in. This was so near the Castle that half of the bowmen under Sir Matthew Grey had been appointed to spend the night in it so that they might come out when the gun fired and shoot their arrows against the battlements between de Insula and Wanshot Towers. So that monk and that lady knelt in that porch, and between their prayers for the success of their dear lording they watched the dawn pointing over the sea, which came with the grey forms of waterspouts. These moved silently, here and there upon the horizon. So they saw the sun come up white and fiercely shining between those monstrous appearances. The monk Francis said that that pale sunrise was a certain sign that the weather was breaking, and he thanked God that all their hay was in. Then they saw the Young Lovell spring up on to the coping of the White Tower. So clear the weather and the light were that they could mark the little lion's head that was carved on the peak of his helmet like the handle of a curling stone.

So he went down out of sight again and they prayed very fiercely, holding each other's hands for comfort. The bowmen whispered from the door behind to know if it were not near time. White smoke flew out from the top of that tower, and the monk cried out so loudly that they never heard the sound of the shot, for he knew that the great gateway was taken. Out ran the archers with their bows bent and stood on the green sward. They shot arrows high so that they fell over the battlements--long arrows with great feathers of the grey goose that journeyed intently through the air. So that gun sounded again and again, and they saw the Young Lovell once more upon that coping. The bowmen in the Castle were sending arrows up against him, but they glanced off his armour because of their slanting flight. He stood there looking down and behind him were the grey waterspouts.

Now as for such as dwelt within the Castle:

A little before the exact minute of sunrise such of them that slept were awakened by the firing of cannon shot, two following. A stone ball came into the window of the Lady Douce and broke a chest. Then from many quarters there came cries, sharp but short like gun shots. And then one scream so high and dreadful that all men stood deaf and amazed. Such a cry had never before been heard in all Northumberland amidst the rain of arrows. There were men bursting in at the great gate of the Castle and others with their swords high coming from the men's kitchen that was between the tower called Constance and that called Wanshot. The men upon the battlements had their bows bent or held up beams and bolts of iron, or were setting iron poles under great stones to roll them down through the machicolations. And the Knight of Wallhouses was whispering to the Lady Douce, who had run down into the great hall, that there were no men coming against the little postern nearest the sea, and that he and she and his men would make their way out of the Castle by the gate.

That tide of dreadful war had come upon them so quickly that it seemed as if, before Henry Vesey's eyes could see, men were bursting in at the great gate and from other places in the Castle. Then he knew that the Young Lovell must be aware of secret ways in that none of them had heard of, and before that fray was two minutes gone he knew that they were lost. Therefore he made ready to get himself gone by the postern.

But when that most dreadful cry was heard all those people stood still; the men with bows, balks, and levers, the men running in with swords; Sir Henry whispering; the Lady Isopel calling from her window; the Decies turning in his bed, and Sir Symonde running along the battlements. That cry deprived them of the powers of motion and made their bones quiver within their flesh like shaken reeds. Some that then heard it said afterwards that it was no more than the voice of the elements.

The monk Francis deemed to the end of his life that he had heard the cry of fear of a false goddess, for, when he went, a broken man, to commune of these things with the Bishop Palatine, that Bishop told him that so that false goddess whom they most dreaded and who is the bane of all Christendom, since in quiet hearts she setteth carnal desire--so that false goddess had cried out when, in the form of a cloud of mist or may be of a rainspout, she had hastened to the rescue of the hero Paris. That had been at the siege of a strong Castle called Troy. That Paris of Troy she had carried away to the top of a high hill near the town, as it might have been Spindleston Crags, and there she had kept him till that battle was done. And part of the cry had been for fear, and partly it was from pain because an arrow had struck her, she being vulnerable, though her blood would turn to jewels.

So the monk Francis was very certain that he had heard at least the cry of fear of a false goddess wailing for her love, and that in the waterspout that bore the Young Lovell away he had seen her twisting and writhing form. Whether she were wounded or not he did not know, but he hoped she was, and well she might have been, for arrows a many were glancing round the form of the Young Lovell where he stood upon the battlements, and all around him and below people stood rigid like figures seen in a flash of lightning whose hearts had ceased to beat, and it fell as black as in the hour before the dawn.

Sir Symonde Vesey, who had been running along the battlements looking up, perceived, so near his hand could touch them, millions of little black clouds twisting in an agony like snakes. Then all that water fell upon him and hurled him from that height into the inner court, where he lay senseless a long while, and so was drowned in a gutter. There was no man there could stand up against that torrent of rain twisting round. Four waterspouts struck that Castle one after the other, and for ten hours so it rained that most of the hovels in the courtyard were washed down, and the mud there was so deep it was up to a man's thighs.

Men fought a little in the corridors, and some three or four were killed in the great kitchen where some had taken refuge. But they could find none of their leaders for a long time, and most of them gave over.

IV

At seven of that night the monk Francis with his masons had opened the hermitage, and lay brothers from the little monastery had borne the hermit's rotten corpse in a sheet into the church where a coffin was. So, because of the terrible smell, they carried the coffin itself out from that church and set it in the grave, though that was so full of rain-water that the coffin floated in it and the funeral rites were inaudible in the heavy gusts of rain. Though it was no more than eight o'clock in July the sky lowered, so that in the shadow of the church it was night.

The monk Francis staggered as he walked; his face was like alabaster where no mud was on it, and mud was over all his habit, splashed above the shoulder as if he had torn through brakes above water-courses. All that while he groaned and beat his chest and looked fearfully, now up the hills, now out to sea, now towards Scotland. Once whilst the masons worked he had fallen on his face in the water that ran round the church end.

But he had that hermitage for his charge and he would let no man lead him away. So, in that darkness, whilst the wind sighed furiously in the trees and the rain was in all their faces, they buried that holy man as best they might, saying that they would hold a fairer ceremony upon another day, for they were all affrighted and cast down by the events of that day and the heavy disasters that might follow. Then, as the lay brothers were bearing away the stretcher upon which they had carried that coffin, one of them cried out like a scream. Against the steely light of the North he had perceived a great cloak tossing out, over the churchyard wall. Then all heard a voice calling to them to send a religious there. So the abbot bade an old monk go, for that might be some sinner that desired to become an eremite in place of that holy man now dead. For thus God works in His wondrous way.

And so indeed it proved. They all stood there in the rain whilst the old monk talked to that form of darkness. The monk Francis was on his knees. Then that old monk came back to them and said that here indeed was come one that desired to go into that little hermit's kennel and there end his days. He was one that had been a good knight, but had sinned so grievously that until he was shriven he would not come upon the holy ground of that churchyard, and he desired the monk Francis to come to him and shrive him! Then that monk cried out with fear, but afterwards he went without the wall and stayed there. The tossing form had disappeared; for the man had kneeled down for his confession.

In the thick darkness the monk Francis came back to those that stayed and said that he approved that that man should be the eremite.

It all passed in the black night. That shape passed in at the little hole the masons had made, and an old mason, so skilled that he could do his work in the dark, put again those stones in their places. Then those monks sang as best they could the canticle "Ad te clamavi," and all men went away to talk under their beaten roofs of these fearful things. Upon all that place the black night came down, whipped by the fell and chilly rain, and all over that churchyard the water gurgled and washed, for it lay very low and all the gutters of the church poured down their invisible floods.

In a very high valley of Corsica the mistress of the world sate upon a throne of white marble in a little round temple that would not hold more than two or three people. A round roof it had, like a pie-dish, and little columns of white marble. All up the green grass of that valley amongst the asphodels walked her women, devising and sporting, in gowns of white and playing at ball with a sphere of gold. Down the valley ran a fierce stream with great and vari-coloured rocks, and in that warm place the sound of its torrent was agreeable to the ear. Agreeable too was the sight of the dazzling snows upon the Golden Mountain; they shone in the sun and the sky was more blue than can be imagined. At the feet of the goddess sat a large woman and extremely fair. Beside her, so that he held her hand, sitting on a couch of rosemary, was a dark shepherd very limber in his bronzed limbs, wearing a tunic of goat skins, a chain of gold that supported a gourd, a Phrygian cap of scarlet woollen work that was entwined with the leaves of the vine upon his black locks. He had in his hand a bow of ivory with tips of gold.

So they sate at ease and looked out of that temple. In his shining armour a young knight that sat upon his steel horse was devising with a hero of the gentle feats of arms. This hero was lithe rather than huge of form. His face was stern and commanding at the same time that it was open and courteous and attentive. He was naked, and whilst he gazed with attention upon the young knight's arms, he rested his harmonious limbs, leaning upon a round shield of triple-plated bronze. Upon his head was his helmet of shining bronze with a great plume of horsehair that nodded far forward over his brows; in his right hand was a very heavy spear tipped with bronze, and upon his bare legs he had bronze greaves. And they were talking of the respective fitnesses of the arms that they bore. Just where they stood was a level sward that might be a quarter of a mile across.

Then that hero signed with his spear and there came out from a thicket a chariot of ivory drawn by four white horses driven by a helmeted charioteer. So that hero mounted into the chariot and covered the charioteer and himself with the great shield and took from the charioteer three casting spears that were very heavy in the beam, and so they went at it for the entertainment of the onlookers. Here and there over that little plain darted the ivory chariot with the white horses. That hero was seeking to get to the hindward of the young knight to cast his spears, for he considered that the war-horse was not limber. But he was limber enough, and always the shield with the chequers of green and scarlet faced the white chariot. So they went at it.

At the last the hero cast his three spears, one upon the horse, one upon the shield, and one upon the helmet of the good knight. But the bronze bent upon the steel; it would not enter in though it were thrown with never such a force. The young knight reeled in his saddle, and his steed upon his feet. Yet, as that hero drove the chariot in, to cast the last spear, the young knight spurred his horse suddenly in upon them, and though the charioteer was very agile with his car, nevertheless the young lord's spear met the great shield of bronze and pierced it through; between the hero and the other the point went, and the ivory wheels of the chariot broke and the white horses fell one upon the other, being taken upon the side by that steel-clad horse. Then that hero sprang from the chariot and ran more swiftly than the young lord could follow to a great rock that was in the grass by the streamside. So he had up the great rock of marble before ever Hamewarts was upon him, and cast that rock upon horse and rider so that both fell down among the asphodels. Then that knight in armour drew himself from under his horse, for the ground there was soft and marshy, and he was but little crushed. And so he stood up upon his feet, having in one hand his bright dagger that was the length of his fore-arm. And that hero had had no time to cast himself upon the knight, for he was for the moment out of breath with the exertion of casting that great rock.

So all there were well pleased and declared that that was a drawn battle. They had off their harness and their clothes and went all a-bathing in the foam of that rapid stream. And, as each one would have it, so those bright waters were warmed by the heat of the sunlight through which they had passed, or icy with the snows that had been their origin.

And afterwards, the women of the goddess anointed the limbs of those combatants with juices and oils so that all their wounds were healed whether of the horses or the heroes. And those women took the harness, both of the bright steel and of the sounding bronze, and rubbing upon the dents with their smooth fingers, soon they had all marks of that combat erased so that the armours shone like waters reflecting the blue sky or like the beaten gold of a bride's girdle. Then all lay them down upon couches of rosemary, heather or asphodel, that were covered with the white fleeces of rams, each person being with whom he would. And they fell to devising from couch to couch, some of times past, some of times to come, and others upon what should have been the issue of that late combat had it been fought upon the wearisome fields known to mortal man. Some said the hero would have won it though arms he had none, for he could run the more swiftly, and might make shift with rocks and stones to pelt that knight until his armour broke. But others said that soon that horse would have revived and the knight, mounting there upon and recovering his great spear would spit that naked hero as he ran, through the back.

Through the opening of that valley the goddess showed them the blue sea with triremes upon it, the white foam going away from their oars as they had fought at Actium. The galleys of Venice she showed them too, all gilded and with the embroidered sails bellying before the soft winds. The cities of the plains they saw, and Rome and Delphi and Tyre, and cities to come that appeared like clouds of smoke, with tall columns rising up and glittering. So, courteously, they devised upon all things, and that knight thought never upon the weariness of Northumberland or upon how his mortal body lived in the little hermitage not much bigger than a hound's kennel that was builded against the wall of the church....

No, there they lay or walked in lemon groves devising of this or that whilst the butterflies settled upon their arms. And when they would have it night, so there was the cool of the evening and a great moon and huge stars and dimness fit for the gentle pleasures of love.

THE END

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