yeomen and troopers in the court; it will keep them from quarrelling
with each other, belonging, as they do, to such unruly and hostile
masters."

So spoke the well meaning and feeble minded prince, and the prior
bowed in acquiescence. As he spoke, the Earl of March entered the
hall of audience, dressed in the ordinary riding garb of the time,
and wearing his poniard. He had left in the anteroom the page of
honour who carried his sword. The Earl was a well built, handsome
man, fair complexioned, with a considerable profusion of light
coloured hair, and bright blue eyes, which gleamed like those of
a falcon. He exhibited in his countenance, otherwise pleasing, the
marks of a hasty and irritable temper, which his situation as a high
and powerful feudal lord had given him but too many opportunities
of indulging.

"I am glad to see you, my Lord of March," said the King, with a
gracious inclination of his person. "You have been long absent from
our councils."

"My liege," answered March with a deep reverence to the King, and
a haughty and formal inclination to the Duke of Albany, "if I have
been absent from your Grace's councils, it is because my place
has been supplied by more acceptable, and, I doubt not, abler,
counsellors. And now I come but to say to your Highness, that the
news from the English frontier make it necessary that I should
return without delay to my own estates. Your Grace has your wise
and politic brother, my Lord of Albany, with whom to consult, and
the mighty and warlike Earl of Douglas to carry your counsels into
effect. I am of no use save in my own country; and thither, with