and
Ralf, furious at the cheat, stood among the foremost, making so much
noise themselves between thundering and reviling, and calling out, 'Where
are the Armagnacs? Down with the traitors!' that they were not aware of
a sudden hush behind them, till a buffet from a heavy hand fell on
Malcolm's shoulder, and a mighty voice cried 'Shame! shame! What, you
too!'

'There are traitors hid here, Sir,' said Percy, in angry
self-justification.

'And what an if there are? Back, every one of you! rogues that you
be!--Here, Fitzhugh, see those villains back to the camp. Let their arms
be given up to the Provost-marshal.--Kites and crows as you are! Away,
out with you!'

Henry pointed to the broken door, and the cowed and abashed soldiers
slunk away from the terrible light of his eyes. No man could stand
before the face of the King.

There was a stillness. He stood leaning on his sword, his chest heaving
with his panting breaths. He was naturally as fleet as the swift-footed
Achilles, but the winter had told upon him, and the haste with which he
had rushed to the rescue left him breathless and speechless, while he
seemed as it were to nail the two lads to the spot by his steady gaze of
mingled distress and displeasure.

Neither could brook his eye: Percy hung his head like a boy in a scrape;
Malcolm quailed with terror, but at the same time felt a keen sense of
injury in being thus treated as a plunderer, and the blow under which his
shoulder ached seemed an indignity to his royal blood.

'Boys,' said Henry, still low and breathlesly, but all the more
impressively, 'what is to become of honour and mercy if such as you must
needs become ravening wolves at scent of booty?'

'It was not booty, Sir; they said traitors were hid here,' said Percy,
sulkily.

'Tush! the old story! Ever the plea for rapine and bloodthirstiness.
After the warnings of last night you should have known better; but you
are all alike in frenzy for a sack. You have both put off your
knighthood till you have learnt not to become a shame thereto.'

'I take not knighthood at your hands, Sir,' burst out Malcolm, goaded
with hot resentment, but startled the next moment at the sound of his own
words.

'I cry you mercy,' said King Henry, in a cold, short tone.

Malcolm turned on his heel and walked away, without waiting to see how
the poor old man in the house threw himself at the King's feet with a
piteous history of his sick daughter and her st