lad, when for good services I gave him his
choice of my favour, chose but the grace of an old drunken shipman. I
did warn him freely, but he was stout in his besottedness. 'Here dieth
your favour,' said I: and he, my lord, with a most assured impertinence,
'Mine be the loss,' quoth he. It shall be so, by the rood!"

"Said he so?" cried Alicia. "Then well said, lion-driver!"

"Who is this?" asked the duke.

"A prisoner of Sir Richard's," answered Lord Foxham; "Mistress Alicia
Risingham."

"See that she be married to a sure man," said the duke.

"I had thought of my kinsman, Hamley, an it like your grace," returned
Lord Foxham. "He hath well served the cause."

"It likes me well," said Richard. "Let them be wedded speedily.--Say,
fair maid, will you wed?"

"My lord duke," said Alicia, "so as the man is straight--" And there, in
a perfect consternation, the voice died on her tongue.

"He is straight, my mistress," replied Richard calmly. "I am the only
crookback of my party; we are else passably well shapen.--Ladies, and
you, my lord," he added, with a sudden change to grave courtesy, "judge
me not too churlish if I leave you. A captain, in the time of war, hath
not the ordering of his hours."

And with a very handsome salutation he passed on, followed by his
officers.

"Alack," cried Alicia, "I am shent!"

"Ye know him not," replied Lord Foxham. "It is but a trifle; he hath
already clean forgot your words."

"He is, then, the very flower of knighthood," said Alicia.

"Nay, but he mindeth other things," returned Lord Foxham. "Tarry we no
more."

In the chancel they found Dick waiting, attended by a few young men; and
there were he and Joan united. When they came forth again, happy and yet
serious, into the frosty air and sunlight, the long flies of the army
were already winding forward up the road; already the Duke of
Gloucester's banner was unfolded and began to move from before the abbey
in a clump of spears; and behind it, girt by steel-clad knights, the
bold, black-hearted, and ambitious hunchback moved on towards his brief
kingdom and his lasting infamy. But the wedding party turned upon the
other side, and sat down, with sober merriment, to breakfast. The father
cellarer attended on their wants, and sat with them at table. Hamley,
all jealousy forgotten, began to ply the nowise loath Alicia with
courtship. And there, amid the sounding of tuckets and the clash of
armoured soldiery and horses continua