‘I cry you mercy,’ said King Henry, in a cold, short tone.

Malcolm turned on his heel and walked away, without waiting to see how the poor old man in the house threw himself at the King’s feet with a piteous history of his sick daughter and her starving children, nor how Ralf hurried off headlong to the lower town to send them immediate relief in bread, wine, and doctors.  The gay, good-natured, thoughtless lad no mere harboured malice for the chastisement than if his tutor had caught him idling; but things went deeper with Malcolm.  True, he had undergone many a brutal jest and cruel practical joke from his cousins; but that was all in the family, not like a blow from an alien king, and one not apologized for, but followed up by a rebuke that seemed to him unjust, lowering him in his own eyes and those of Esclairmonde, and making him ready to gnaw himself with moody vexation.

‘You here, Malcolm!’ said King James, entering his quarters; ’did you miss me in the throng?  I have not seen you all day.’

‘I have been insulted, Sir,’ said Malcolm.  ’I pray your license to depart and carry my sword to my kinsmen in the French camp.’

‘How now!  Is it the way to treat an insult to run away from it?’

‘Not when the world judges men to be on equal terms, my lord.’

‘What!  Who has done you wrong, you silly loon?’

’King Henry, Sir; he struck me with his fist, and rated me like his hound; and I will not eat another morsel of his bread unless he would answer it to me in single combat.’

‘Little enough bread you’d eat after that same answer!’ ejaculated James.  ’Oh!  I understand now.  You were with young Hotspur and the rest that set on the poor townsmen, and Harry made small distinction of persons!  Nay, Malcolm, it was ill in you, that talked of so loathing spulzie!’

’I wanted no spulzie.  There were Armagnacs hid in the house, and the King would not hear us.’

’He knew that story too well.  Were you asleep or idling last night, when he warned all, on no plea whatever, to break into a house, but, if the old tale of treachery came up, to set a guard, and call one of the captains?  Did you hear him—­eh?’

’I can take chiding from you, Sir, but neither words nor blows from any other king in Christendom, still less when he threatens me that I have deferred my knighthood!  As if I would have it from him!’

‘From me you will not have it until he have pardoned Ralf Percy,’ said James, dryly.  ’Malcolm, I had not thought you such a fule body!  Under a captain’s banner, what can be done but submit to his rule?  I should do so myself, were Salisbury or March in command.’

‘Then, Sir,’ said Malcolm, much hurt that the King did not take his part, ‘I shall carry my service elsewhere.’

‘So,’ said James, much vexed, ’this is the meek lad that wanted to hide in a convent from an ill world, flying off from his king and kinsman that he may break down honest men’s doors at his will.’