’Well done, Glenuskie; you have all the adventures!  They seek you, I believe!  So you have borne off your damosel errant, and are just in time to receive your king.’

‘Is he wedded then?’

’Ay, and you find us all here in full state, prepared to banquet him and lodge him and his bride for a night, and then I fancy my brother is to go through some ceremony, ere giving him up to his own subjects.  We are watching for him every day.  Come to my chamber, and I’ll apparel you.’

‘Nay, but what brings you here, Ralf?—­you, whom I thought in France.’

‘’Twas a Scottish bill that brought me,’ answered Ralf.  ’What, are you too lost in parchment at Oxford to hear of us poor soldiers, or knew you not how we fought at Crevant?’

’I heard of the battle, and that you were hurt, but that was months ago, and I deemed you long since in the field again.  Was it so sore a matter?’

’Chiefly sore for that it hindered me from taking the old rogue Douglas, and meriting my spurs as befitted a Percy.  I was knighted while the trumpet was sounding, and I did think that I was on the way to prowess, for fully in the melee I saw a fellow with the Douglas banner.  I made at it, thinking of my father’s and of Otterburn; and, Malcolm, this very hand was on the staff, when what must a big Scot do but chop at me with his bill like a butcher’s axe.  Had it fallen on mine arm it would have been lopped off like a bough of a tree, but, by St. George’s grace, it lit here, between my neck and shoulder, and stuck fast as I went down, and the fellow was swept away from me.  ’Twas so fixed in the very bone, that they had much ado to wrench it out, when there was time after the fight to look after us who had come by the worse.  And what d’ye think they found, Malcolm?  Why, those honest Yorkshiremen, Trenton and Kitson, stark dead, both of them.  Trenton must have gone down first, with a lance-thrust in the throat; and there was Kitson over him, his shield over his head, and his own cleft open with an axe!  They laid them side by side—­so I was told—­in their grave; and sure ’twas as strange and as true a brotherhood as ever was between two brave men.’

‘The good fellows!’ cried Malcolm.  ’Nay, after what I saw I can hardly grieve.  I went to Kitson’s home, where they knew as little as I did of his death, and verily his place had closed up behind him, so that I scarce think his mother even cared to see him more, and the whole of them seemed more concerned at his amity with Trenton than proud of his feats of arms.  I was marvelling if their friendship would be allowed to subsist at home, even when they, poor fellows, were lying side by side in their French grave.’

‘We warriors should never come home,’ said Percy; ’we are spoilt for aught but our French camp.  I am wearying to get back once more, but so long as I cannot swing my sword-arm I must play the idler here.’