“My innocent friends!  Nay, nay, Gaston—­they are too knightly to merit such measure.  Then it is the old accusation of witchcraft, I suppose.  So I was in league with the Castilian witch and her cats, was I?”

“Ay; and her broom-stick or her cats wafted you to Lynwood, where you suddenly stood in the midst of the mourners, borne into the hall on a howling blast!  How I got there, I am sorry to say, the craven declared not, lest I should give him the lie at once!”

“But surely, such a tale is too absurd and vulgar to deceive our noble Prince.”

“Oh, there is another version for his ears.  This is only for the lower sort, who might not have thought the worse of you for kidnapping your nephew, vowing his mother should remain unburied till he was in your hands, and carrying off all his rents.”

“That is Clarenham’s slander.”

“Yes.”

“And credited by the Prince?  Oh! little did I think the hand which laid knighthood on my shoulder should repent the boon that it gave!” exclaimed Eustace, with a burst of sorrow rather than anger.

“Do you not challenge the traitor at once?”

“I trow not, unless he speaks the charge to my face.  Father Cyril declared that any outbreak on my part would damage our cause in the eyes of the Chancellor; we must bide our time.  Since Arthur is safe, I will bear my own burden.  I am guiltless in this matter, and I trust that the blessing of Heaven on my deeds shall restore a name, obscured, but not tarnished.”

The resolution to forbear was tested, for time passed on without vindicating him.  With such art had the toils of his enemies been spread, that no opening was left him for demanding an explanation.  The calumnies could only be brought home to the lowest retainers of Clarenham and Ashton, and the only result of the zealous refutation by the followers of Sir Eustace was a brawl between John Ingram and a yeoman of Clarenham’s, ending in their spending a week in the custody of the Provost Marshal.

Had there been any tournament or like sport at Bordeaux, Eustace could have asserted his place, and challenged the attention of the court; but the state of the Prince’s health prevented such spectacles; nor had he any opportunity of acquiring honour by his deeds in arms.  No army took the field on either side, and the war was chiefly carried on by expeditions for the siege or relief of frontier castles; and here his unusual rank as Knight Banneret stood in his way, since it was contrary to etiquette for him to put himself under the command of a Knight Bachelor.  He was condemned therefore to a weary life of inaction, the more galling, because his poverty made it necessary to seek maintenance as formerly at the Prince’s table, where he was daily reminded, by the altered demeanour of his acquaintance, of the unjust suspicions beneath which he laboured.  He had hoped that a dismissal from his post in the Prince’s band would give him