"that it is no fit training
for a demoiselle: hawks and hounds, rotes and citoles singing a French
rondel, or reading the Gestes de Doon de Mayence, as I found her
yesternight, pretending sleep, the artful, with the corner of the scroll
thrusting forth from under her pillow. Lent her by Father Christopher of
the priory, forsooth--that is ever her answer. How shall all this help
her when she has castle of her own to keep, with a hundred mouths all
agape for beef and beer?"

"True, my sweet bird, true," answered the knight, picking a comfit from
his gold drageoir. "The maid is like the young filly, which kicks heels
and plunges for very lust of life. Give her time, dame, give her time."

"Well, I know that my father would have given me, not time, but a good
hazel-stick across my shoulders. Ma foi! I know not what the world is
coming to, when young maids may flout their elders. I wonder that you do
not correct her, my fair lord."

"Nay, my heart's comfort, I never raised hand to woman yet, and it would
be a passing strange thing if I began on my own flesh and blood. It was
a woman's hand which cast this lime into mine eyes, and though I saw
her stoop, and might well have stopped her ere she threw, I deemed it
unworthy of my knighthood to hinder or balk one of her sex."

"The hussy!" cried Lady Loring clenching her broad right hand. "I would
I had been at the side of her!"

"And so would I, since you would have been the nearer me my own. But
I doubt not that you are right, and that Maude's wings need clipping,
which I may leave in your hands when I am gone, for, in sooth, this
peaceful life is not for me, and were it not for your gracious kindness
and loving care I could not abide it a week. I hear that there is talk
of warlike muster at Bordeaux once more, and by St. Paul! it would be a
new thing if the lions of England and the red pile of Chandos were to
be seen in the field, and the roses of Loring were not waving by their
side."

"Now woe worth me but I feared it!" cried she, with the color all struck
from her face. "I have noted your absent mind, your kindling eye, your
trying and riveting of old harness. Consider my sweet lord, that you
have already won much honor, that we have seen but little of each other,
that you bear upon your body the scar of over twenty wounds received
in I know not how many bloody encounters. Have you not done enough for
honor and the public cause?"

"My lady, when our liege lord, the