The prospect thus suddenly opened to Scudamore of a wider life and greater liberty, might have dazzled many a nobler nature than his.  Lord Worcester saw the light in his eyes, and as he left the room gazed after him with pitiful countenance.

‘Poor lad! poor lad!’ he said to himself; ’I hope I see not the last of thee!  God forbid!  But here thou didst but rust, and it were a vile thing in an old man to infect a youth with the disease of age.’

Rowland soon found the master of the armoury, and with him crossed to the keep, where it lay, above the workshop.  At the foot of the stair he talked loud, in the hope that Dorothy might be with the fire-engine, which he thought he heard at work, and would hear him.  Having chosen such pieces as pleased his fancy, and needed but a little of the armourer’s art to render them suitable, he filled his arms with them, and following the master down, contrived to fall a little behind, so that he should leave the tower before him, when he dropped them all with a huge clatter at the foot of the stair.  The noise was sufficient, for it brought out Dorothy.  She gazed for a moment as, pretending not to have seen her, he was picking them up with his back towards her.

‘Do I see thee arming at length, cousin?’ she said.  ’I congratulate thee.’

She held out her hand to him.  He took it and stared.  The reception of his noisy news was different from what he had been vain enough to hope.  So little had Dorothy’s behaviour in the capture of Rowland enlightened him as to her character!

‘Thou wouldst have me slain then to be rid of me, Dorothy?’ he gasped.

‘I would have any man slain where men fight,’ returned Dorothy, ‘rather than idling within stone walls!’

’Thou art hard-hearted, Dorothy, and knowest not what love is, else wouldst thou pity me a little.’

‘What! art afraid, cousin?’

‘Afraid!  I fear nothing under heaven but thy cruelty, Dorothy.’

‘Then what wouldst thou have me pity thee for?’

‘I would, an’ I had dared, have said—­Because I must leave thee.  But thou wouldst mock at that, and therefore I say instead—­Because I shall never return; for I see well that thou never hast loved me even a little.’

Dorothy smiled.

‘An’ I had loved thee, cousin,’ she rejoined, ’I had never let thee rest, or left soliciting thee, until thou hadst donned thy buff coat and buckled on thy spurs, and departed to be a man among men, and no more a boy among women.’

So saying she returned to her engine, which all the time had been pumping and forcing with fiery inspiration.

Scudamore mounted and rode, followed by one of the grooms.  He found the king at Wallingford, presented the marquis’s letter, proffered his services, and was at once placed in attendance on his majesty’s person.