Hob, however, scratched his head, with a more boorish air than he had before manifested, and muttered something about a cow that needed his attention, and that he could not spare the time from his herd for all that the Prioress was like to give him.

‘Take this, then,’ said Anne, disengaging a gold clasp from her neck, and giving it to him.  ’Bear it to the goodwife and bid her recollect me in her prayers.’

‘I shall come and redeem it from thee, sulky carle as thou art,’ said Bertram.  ’Such jewels are not for greasy porridge-fed housewives.  Hark thee, have it ready for me!  I shall be at thy hovel ere long’—­ as Anne waved to Hob when she was lifted to her seat.

But Hob had already turned away, and Anne, as she held on by Archie’s leathern belt, in her gay tone was beginning to defend him by declaring that porridge and grease did not go together, so the nickname was not rightly bestowed on the kindly goodwife.

‘Ay!  Greasy from his lord’s red deer,’ said Bertram, ’or his tainted mutton.  Trust one of these herds, and a sheep is tainted whenever he wants a good supper.  Beshrew me but that stout fellow looks lusty and hearty enough, as if he lived well.’

‘They were good and kind, and treated me well,’ said Anne.  ’I should be dead if they had not succoured me.’

’The marvel is you are not dead with the stench of their hovel, and the foulness of their food.’

‘It was very good food—­milk, meat, and oaten porridge,’ replied Anne.

‘Marvellous, I say!’ cried Bertram with a sudden thought.  ’Was it not said that there were some of those traitorous Lancastrian folk lurking about the mountains and fells?  That rogue had the bearing of a man-at-arms, far more than of a mere herd.  Deemedst thou not so, Archie?’ to the elderly man who rode before the young damsel.

’Herdsmen here are good with the quarter-staff.  They know how to stand against the Scots, and do not get bowed like our Midland serfs,’ put in Anne, before Archie could answer, which he did with something of a snarl, as Bertram laughed somewhat jeeringly, and declared that the Lady Anne had become soft-hearted.  She looked down at her roses, but in the dismounting and mounting again the petals of the red rose had floated away, and nothing was left of it save a slender pink bud enclosed within a dark calyx.

Archie, hard pressed, declared, ’There are poor fellows lurking about here and there, but bad blood is over among us.  No need to ferret about for them.’

’Eh!  Not when there may be a lad among them for whose head the king and his brothers would give the weight of it in gold nobles?’

Anne shivered a little at this, but she cried out, ’Shame on you, Master Bertram Selby, if you would take a price for the head of a brave foe!  You, to aspire to be a knight!’

’Nay, lady, I was but pointing out to Archie and the other grooms here, how they might fill their pouches if they would.  I verily believe thou knowst of some lurking-place, thou art so prompt to argue!  Did I not see another with thee, who made off when we came in view?  Say!  Was he a blood-stained Clifford?  I heard of the mother having married in these parts.’