cast this lime into mine eyes, and though I saw her stoop, and might well have stopped her ere she threw, I deemed it unworthy of my knighthood to hinder or balk one of her sex.'
'The hussy!' cried Lady Loring, clenching her broad right hand. 'I would I had been at the side of her!'
'And so would I, since you would have been the nearer me, my own. But I doubt not that you are right, and that Maude's wings need clipping, which I may leave in your hands when I am gone, for, in sooth, this peaceful life is not for me, and were it not for your gracious kindness and loving care I could not abide it a week. I hear that there is talk of warlike muster at Bordeaux once more, and by St. Paul! it would be a new thing if the lions of England and the red pile of Chandos were to be seen in the field, and the roses of Loring were not waving by their side.'
'Now woe worth me but I feared it!' cried she, with the colour all struck from her face. 'I have noted your absent mind, your kindling eye, your trying and riveting of old harness. Consider, my sweet lord, that you have already won much honour, that we have seen but little of each other, that you bear upon your body the scars of over twenty wounds received in I know not how many bloody encounters. Have you not done enough for honour and the public cause?'
'My lady, when our liege lord the king at nigh three-score, and my Lord Chandos at threescore and ten, are blithe and ready to lay lance in rest for England's cause, it would ill beseem me to prate of service done. It is sooth that I have received seven-and-twenty wounds. There is the more reason that I should be thankful that I am still long of breath and sound in limb. I have also seen some bickering and scuffling. Six great land battles I count, with four upon the sea, and seven-and-fifty onfalls, skirmishes and bushments. I have held two-and-twenty towns, and I have been at the intaking of thirty-one. Surely then it would be bitter shame to me, and also to you, since my fame is yours, that
