hrown in the melee at the
great tournament at York, and that that same Lord Brookhurst had ridden
his iron-shod war-horse twice over his enemy's prostrate body before his
squire could draw him from the press, and had then and there given him
the wound from which he afterwards went blind. The Earl swore to Myles
that Lord Brookhurst had done what he did wilfully, and had afterwards
boasted of it. Then, with some hesitation, he told Myles the reason
of Lord Brookhurst's enmity, and that it had arisen on account of Lady
Falworth, whom he had one time sought in marriage, and that he had sworn
vengeance against the man who had won her.

Piece by piece the Earl of Mackworth recounted every circumstance and
detail of the revenge that the blind man's enemy had afterwards
wreaked upon him. He told Myles how, when his father was attainted
of high-treason, and his estates forfeited to the crown, the King had
granted the barony of Easterbridge to the then newly-created Earl of
Alban in spite of all the efforts of Lord Falworth's friends to the
contrary; that when he himself had come out from an audience with the
King, with others of his father's friends, the Earl of Alban had boasted
in the anteroom, in a loud voice, evidently intended for them all to
hear, that now that he had Falworth's fat lands, he would never rest
till he had hunted the blind man out from his hiding, and brought his
head to the block.

"Ever since then," said the Earl of Mackworth "he hath been striving by
every means to discover thy father's place of concealment. Some time,
haply, he may find it, and then--"

Myles had felt for a long time that he was being moulded and shaped, and
that the Earl of Mackworth's was the hand that was making him what he
was growing to be; but he had never realized how great were the things
expected of him should he pass the first great test, and show himself
what his friends hoped to see him. Now he knew that all were looking
upon him to act, sometime, as his father's champion, and when that time
should come, to challenge the Earl of Alban to the ordeal of single
combat, to purge his father's name of treason, to restore him to his
rank, and to set the house of Falworth where it stood before misfortune
fell upon it.

But it was not alone concerning his and his father's affairs that the
Earl of Mackworth talked to Myles. He told him that the Earl of Alban
was the Earl of Mackworth's enemy also; that in his younger days he had