Malcolm, and told of Bishop
Kennedy and the schemes for St. Andrews, and he in return described
Winchester College, and spoke of his wish to have such another
foundation as Wykeham's under his own eye near Windsor, to train up the
godly clergy, whom he saw to be the great need and lack of the Church at
that day.

By and by, on going in from the garden, the King and Eleanor found that
a tall, gray-haired gentleman, richly but darkly clad, had entered the
hall. He had been welcomed by the young King and Queen of Wight, who had
introduced Jean to him. 'My uncle of Gloucester,' said the King, aside.
'It is the first time he has come among us since the unhappy affair of
his wife. Let me present you to him.'

Going forward, as the Duke rose to meet him, Henry bent his knee
and asked his fatherly blessing, then introduced the Lady Eleanor of
Scotland--'who knows all lays and songs, and loves letters, as you told
me her blessed father did, my fair uncle,' he said, with sparkling eyes.

Duke Humfrey looked well pleased as he greeted her. 'Ever the scholar,
Nevoy Hal,' he said, as if marvelling at the preference above the
beauty, 'but each man knows his own mind. So best.' Eleanor's heart
began to beat high! What did this bode? Was this King fully pledged? She
had to fulfil her promise of singing and playing to the King, which she
did very sweetly, some of the pathetic airs of her country, which reach
back much farther than the songs with which they have in later times
been associated. The King thoroughly enjoyed the music, and the Duke of
York came and paid her several compliments, begging for the song she had
once begun at Fotheringay. Eleanor began--not perhaps so willingly as
before. Strangely, as she sang--

'Owre muckle blinking blindeth the ee, lass,
Owre muckle thinking changeth the mind,'--

her face and voice altered. Something of the same mist of tears and
blood seemed to rise before her eyes as before--enfolding all around.
Such a winding-sheet which had before enwrapt the King of Wight, she
saw it again--nay, on the Duke of Gloucester there was such another,
mounting--mounting to his neck. The face of Henry himself grew dim
and ghastly white, like that of a marble saint. She kept herself from
screaming, but her voice broke down, and she gave a choking sob.

King Henry's arm was the first to support her, though she shuddered as
he touched her, calling for essences, and lamenting that t