she was pleased to avow. 'I will speak of it,' he said, 'to Edward, who is clerkly learned, and will tell me what I should do. And yet, no—Edward is scrupulous and wary. I will prove the effect of her gift on Sir Piercie Shafton if he again braves me, and by the issue, I will be myself a sufficient judge whether there is danger in resorting to her counsel. Home, then, home—and we shall soon learn whether that home shall longer hold me; for not again will I brook insult, with my father's sword by my side, and Mary for the spectator of my disgrace.'
Chapter XVIII
I give thee eighteenpence a-day,
And my bow shalt thou bear,
And over all the north country,
I make thee the chief rydere.
And I thirteenpence a-day, quoth the queen,
By God and by my faye,
Come fetch thy payment when thou wilt,
No man shall say thee nay.
William of Cloudesley.
The manners of the age did not permit the inhabitants of Glendearg to partake of the collation which was placed in the spence of that ancient tower, before the lord abbot and his attendants, and Sir Piercie Shafton. Dame Glen-dinning was excluded, both by inferiority of rank and by sex, for (though it was a rule often neglected) the superior of Saint Mary's was debarred from taking his meals in female society. To Mary Avenel the latter, and to Edward Glendinning the former, incapacity attached; but it pleased his lordship to require their presence in the apartment, and to say sundry kind words to them upon the ready and hospitable reception which they had afforded him.
The smoking haunch now stood upon the table; a napkin, white as snow, was, with due reverence, tucked under the chin of the abbot by the refectioner; and naught was wanting to commence the repast save the presence of Sir Piercie Shafton, who at length appeared, glittering like the sun, in a carnation-velvet doublet, slashed and puffed out
