“There was a time he would not,” answered the earl, mournfully; “a time, when Edward would have held it foul scorn to war with women, and worse than scorn to obtain their persons by treachery, as now.”

“Aye, but he has changed, and we must change too, would we please him,” said the baron; “such notions might have done in former days, but they are too high-flown for the present time, my good lord.  I marvel they should have lingered so long with thee.”

A frown gathered on Hereford’s broad and noble brow, but remembering the forbearance due to his host, he checked an angry reply.  “The king has changed,” he said, “darkly and painfully changed; ambition has warped the noblest, knightliest heart which ever beat for chivalry.”

“Hush, ere thou speakest treason, Sir Earl; give me not the pain of draining another flagon of this sparkling hypocras to gain strength for thine arrest, good friend,” exclaimed Lancaster, laying the flat of his sword on the earl’s shoulder.

Hereford half smiled.  “Thou art too happy in thy light-hearted mirth for me to say aught that would so disturb it,” he said; “yet I say, and will say again, would to heaven, I had been before the gates of Kildrummie, and left to thee all the honor and glory, an thou wilt, of this capture.”

“Honor and glory, thou bitter piece of satire!” rejoined Lancaster, holding up a large golden flagon, to hide his face from the earl.  “Unhappy me, were this all the glory I could win.  I will wipe away the stain, if stain there be, at Kildrummie, an it be not surrendered ere we reach it.”

“The stain is with the base traitor Ross, not with thee or me,” answered Hereford; “’tis that I abhor the nature of such expeditions, that I loathe, aye, loathe communication with such as he, and that—­if it can be—­that worse traitor Buchan, that makes me rejoice I have naught before me now but as fair a field as a siege may be.  Would to God, this devastating and most cruel war were over, I do say! on a fair field it may be borne, but not to war with women and children, as has been my fate.”

“Aye, by the way, this is not the first fair prize thou hast sent to Edward; the Countess of Buchan was a rare jewel for our coveting monarch—­somewhat more than possession, there was room for vengeance there.  Bore she her captivity more queenly than the sobbing and weeping Margaret?”

The question was reiterated by most of the knights around the dais, but Hereford evidently shrunk from the inquiry.

“Speak not of it, I charge ye,” he said.  “There is no room for jesting on grief as hers; majestic and glorious she was, but if the reported tale be true, her every thought, her every feeling was, as I even then imagined, swallowed up in one tearless and stern but all-engrossing anguish.”

“The reported tale! meanest thou the fate of her son?” asked one of the knights.

“If it be true!” resumed another; “believest thou, my lord, there is aught of hope to prove it false?”