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.