mer.

"Why, Oswald! Ah! I see I should say Sir Oswald. What brings you here?
Some good news, I trust. Has my ransom been collected?"

"It has been collected, Sir Edmund," Oswald said, as they shook hands,
"but the king, who refused altogether to pay your ransom, as he did
Lord Grey's, has forbidden the money, raised partly by your tenants and
partly by the tenants of your nephew, to be handed over. 'Tis clear
that he views you as an enemy; and has, indeed, ventured to declare his
belief that your capture by Glendower was a thing arranged,
beforehand."

"He lies!" Sir Edmund exclaimed angrily. "We fought stoutly and, had it
not been for the treachery of the Welsh bowmen, should have won the
day.

"Then how stands the matter, Sir Oswald, and how is it that you are
here?"

Oswald then related the purport of his mission, and gave Mortimer some
messages with which Hotspur had charged him, on the evening before he
started.

"Assuredly I will join," Sir Edmund exclaimed, when Oswald brought his
story to a conclusion. "Have I not suffered enough by keeping a force
on foot, by having my lands harried and my vassals slain, in order to
support Henry's claims to the kingdom of Wales, only to be suspected of
treachery? Had I intended to join Glendower, I should have done so a
year before; and with my force and his, we could have kept Henry at
bay. Why should I have kept up the pretext of loyalty, when there was
nought to have prevented my joining Glendower? Why should I have fought
him, at the cost of the lives of some twelve hundred of my men, when I
could have marched them into his camp, as friends? Why should I suffer
nine months of close imprisonment, at the hands of an ally?

"Henry lied, and knew that he lied, when he brought such a charge
against me. He wished to be able to work his will on the young earl,
and maybe to murder him as he murdered Richard, without there being one
powerful enough to lift his voice to condemn the murder. All is at an
end between us, and henceforth I am his open enemy, as he is mine; and
would be heart and soul with the Percys in the overthrow of Henry, even
if my nephew were not concerned, and did the earl purpose, himself, to
grasp the crown."

"Glendower is below, Sir Edmund, and will himself speak to you; but he
thought that it were best that I should first open the matter to you."

A quarter of an hour later the keeper of the hold came up, and said
that the prince bade Sir Edmund t