fellow, and will no doubt do his best to work on the feelings of the other
knights by representing that it would be disgraceful for so large a force
to abandon the enterprise merely because a first hasty attack, delivered
without preparation, had been repulsed. The fact that they have made so
careful an examination of the castle would seem in itself to show that
they intended to renew the attempt in another form if the first onset
failed, and, moreover, the scattering of the force afterwards while the
knights still remained with a large body here points in the same
direction."

Guy on descending from the keep joined Sir Eustace and his wife in their
apartments.

"The lad has borne himself bravely," Sir Eustace said approvingly to his
wife; "he was standing beside me when their shot was bringing down the
dust round our ears, and he neither started nor flinched, though in truth
it was far from pleasant, especially as we had nothing to do but to look
on. It may be next time we shall have sterner fighting, and I doubt not
that he will bear himself well."

"Could I not come up and carry your messages, father?" Henry asked; "I am
not strong like Guy, but I could do that."

"He is too young for it yet, Eustace," Dame Margaret broke in.

"Nay, wife," the knight said gently, "the lad is not too young for such
service. There will be little danger in it, for his head will not show
over the battlements, and it is well that he should learn to hear without
fear the whizz of an arrow or the shock of a great stone from a ballista,
the clash of arms, and the shouting of men. As he says, he is not yet