swords, and daggers, but they were not going to a quarter where fighting
was to be expected, and bright armour was not to be exposed to rust
without need. A visit of inspection to the delvers was not a congenial
occupation, for though the men-at-arms had obeyed James fairly well when
he was in sole command at Dreux, yet whenever he was obliged to enforce
anything unpopular, the national dislike to the Scot was apt to show
itself, and the whole army was at present in a depressed condition which
made such manifestations the more probable.

But King Henry was not half recovered from a heavy feverish cold, which
he had not confessed or attended to, and he had also of late been
troubled with a swelling of the neck. This morning, too, much to his
inconvenience and dismay, he had missed his signet-ring. The private
seal on such a ring was of more importance than the autograph at that
time, and it would never have left the King's hand; but no doubt, in
consequence of his indisposition, his finger, always small-boned, had
become thin enough to allow the signet to escape unawares, he was
unwilling to publish the loss, as it might cast doubt on the papers he
despatched, and he, with his chamberlain Fitzhugh, King James, Malcolm,
Percy, and a few more, had spent half the morning in the vain search,
ending by the King sending his chamberlain, Lord Fitzhugh, to carry to
Paris a seal already bearing his shield, but lacking the small private
mark that authenticated it as his signet. Fitzhugh would stand over the
lapidary and see this added, and bring it back. Ralf Percy had meantime
been sent to bring a report of the diggers, but he was long in returning;
and when Henry became uneasy, James had volunteered to go himself, and
Henry had consented, not because the air was full of sleety rain or snow,
but because his hands were full of letters needing to be despatched to
all quarters.

The air was so thick that it was not easy to see where were the sullen
group of diggers presided over by the quondam duellists of Thirsk, Kitson
and Trenton, now the most inseparable and impracticable of men; but James
and his companions had ridden about two miles from the market-place, when
Ralf Percy came out of the mist, exclaiming, 'Is it you, Sir King? Maybe
you can do something with those rascals! I've talked myself blue with
cold to make them slope the sides of their dyke, but the owl Kitson says
no Yorkshireman ditcher ever went but by one f