n, you
are well mounted, gallop after the caitiff, I pray you."

"Do so, Sir William," said the prince, "and give him this purse of a
hundred nobles as a sign of the respect which I bear for him; for,
by St. George! he has served his master this day even as I would wish
liegeman of mine to serve me." So saying, the prince turned his back
upon the King of Spain, and springing upon his horse, rode slowly
homewards to the Abbey of Saint Andrew's.

CHAPTER XXV. HOW SIR NIGEL WROTE TO TWYNHAM CASTLE.

On the morning after the jousting, when Alleyne Edricson went, as was
his custom, into his master's chamber to wait upon him in his dressing
and to curl his hair, he found him already up and very busily at work.
He sat at a table by the window, a deer-hound on one side of him and a
lurcher on the other, his feet tucked away under the trestle on which
he sat, and his tongue in his cheek, with the air of a man who is much
perplexed. A sheet of vellum lay upon the board in front of him, and
he held a pen in his hand, with which he had been scribbling in a rude
schoolboy hand. So many were the blots, however, and so numerous the
scratches and erasures, that he had at last given it up in despair, and
sat with his single uncovered eye cocked upwards at the ceiling, as one
who waits upon inspiration.

"By Saint Paul!" he cried, as Alleyne entered, "you are the man who will
stand by me in this matter. I have been in sore need of you, Alleyne."

"God be with you, my fair lord!" the squire answered. "I trust that you
have taken no hurt from all that you have gone through yesterday."

"Nay; I feel the fresher for it, Alleyne. It has eased my joints, which
were somewhat stiff from these years of peace. I trust, Alleyne, that
thou didst very carefully note and mark the bearing and carriage of
this knight of France; for it is time, now when you are young, that you
should see all that is best, and mould your own actions in accordance.
This was a man from whom much honor might be gained, and I have seldom
met any one for whom I have conceived so much love and esteem. Could
I but learn his name, I should send you to him with my cartel, that we
might have further occasion to watch his goodly feats of arms."

"It is said, my fair lord, that none know his name save only the Lord
Chandos, and that he is under vow not to speak it. So ran the gossip at
the squires' table."

"Be he who he might, he was a very hardy gentleman. But I have