ascon merchant, where he had
always lodged. He met with a ready welcome, and inquiring into the
most recent news of the town, learnt that the Prince was considered to
be slightly improved in health; but that no word was spoken of the army
taking the field, and the war was chiefly carried on by the siege of
Castles. He asked for Sir John Chandos, and was told that high words
had passed between him and the Prince respecting a hearth-tax, and that
since he had returned to his government, and seldom or never appeared
at the council board. It was the Earl of Pembroke who was all-powerful
there. And here the old Gascon wandered into lamentable complaints of
the aforesaid hearth-tax, from which Eustace could scarcely recall him
to answer whether the English Baron de Clarenham had arrived at
Bordeaux. He had come, and with as splendid a train as ever was
beheld, and was in high favour at court.

This was no pleasing intelligence, but Eustace determined to go the
next day to present his nephew to the Prince immediately after the
noontide meal, when it was the wont of the Plantagenet Princes to throw
their halls open to their subjects.

Accordingly, leading Arthur by the hand, and attended by Gaston, he
made his appearance in the hall just as the banquet was concluded, but
ere the Knights had dispersed. Many well-known faces were there, but
as he advanced up the space between the two long tables, he was amazed
at meeting scarce one friendly glance of recognition; some looked
unwilling to seem to know him, and returned his salutation with distant
coldness; others gazed at the window, or were intent on their wine, and
of these was Leonard Ashton, whom to his surprise he saw seated among
the Knights.

Thus he passed on until he had nearly reached the dais where dined the
Prince and the personages of the most exalted rank. Here he paused as
his anxious gaze fell upon the Prince, and marked his countenance and
mien--alas! how changed! He sat in his richly-carved chair, wrapped in
a velvet mantle, which, even on that bright day of a southern spring,
he drew closer round him with a shuddering chilliness. His elbow
rested on the arm of his chair, and his wasted cheek leant on his
hand--the long thin fingers of which showed white and transparent as a
lady's; his eyes were bent on the ground, and a look of suffering or of
moody thought hung over the whole of that face, once full of free and
open cheerfulness. Tears filled Eusta