"

"By the bearer of the Prince's letters to the King. Sir Richard
Ferrars knows him, and will give them into his charge. So farewell,
Gaston, keep quiet, and weary not yourself with my equipment."

With these words he left the tent, and Gaston, shaking his head, and
throwing himself back on his deer-skins, exclaimed, "Tender and true,
brave and loving! I know not what to make of Eustace Lynwood. His
spirit is high as a Paladin's of old, of that I never doubted, yet is
his hand as deft at writing as a clerk's, and his heart as soft as a
woman's. How he sighed and wept the livelong night, when he thought
none could hear him! Well, Sir Reginald was a noble Knight, and is
worthily mourned, but where is the youth who would not have been more
uplifted at his own honours, than downcast at his loss; and what
new-made Knight ever neglected his accoutrements to write sad tidings
to his sister-in-law? But," he continued, rising again, "Guy, bring me
here the gilded spurs you will find yonder. The best were, I know,
buried with Sir Reginald, and methought there was something amiss with
one rowel of the other. So it is. Speed to Maitre Ferry, the
armourer, and bid him come promptly."

"And lie you still on your couch meanwhile, Master d'Aubricour," said
Guy, "or there will soon be another Squire missing among the Lances of
Lynwood."

"I marvel at you, d'Aubricour," said Leonard, looking up from a pasty,
which he was devouring with double relish, to make up for past
privations, "I marvel that you should thus weary yourself, with your
fresh wound, and all for nought."

"Call you our brave young banneret nought? Shame on thee! All England
should be proud of him, much more his friend and companion."

"I wish Eustace Lynwood well with all my heart," said Leonard, "but I
see not why he is to be honoured above all others. Yourself, Gaston,
so much older, so perfect in all exercises, you who fought with this
Frenchman too, of whom they make so much, the Prince might as well have
knighted you, as Eustace, who would have been down in another moment
had not I made in to the rescue. Methinks if I had been the Prince, I
would have inquired upon whom knighthood would sit the best."

"And the choice would have been the same," said Gaston. "Not only was
Sir Eustace the captor of Messire Bertrand, whereas my luck was quite
otherwise; but what would knighthood have availed the wandering
landless foreigner, as you courteously t