acquaintance the smith, "between the townsmen and the Southland
loons who ride with the Douglas; and we have swinged them as far
as the abbey gate."

"I am glad of it--I am glad of it. And you beat the knaves fairly?"

"Fairly, does your Highness ask?" said Henry. "Why, ay! We were
stronger in numbers, to be sure; but no men ride better armed than
those who follow the Bloody Heart. And so in a sense we beat them
fairly; for, as your Highness knows, it is the smith who makes the
man at arms, and men with good weapons are a match for great odds."

While they thus talked, the Earl of March, who had spoken with
some one near the palace gate, returned in anxious haste. "My Lord
Duke!--my Lord Duke! your father is recovered, and if you haste
not speedily, my Lord of Albany and the Douglas will have possession
of his royal ear."

"And if my royal father is recovered," said the thoughtless Prince,
"and is holding, or about to hold, counsel with my gracious uncle
and the Earl of Douglas, it befits neither your lordship nor me to
intrude till we are summoned. So there is time for me to speak of
my little business with mine honest armourer here."

"Does your Highness take it so?" said the Earl, whose sanguine
hopes of a change of favour at court had been too hastily excited,
and were as speedily checked. "Then so let it be for George of
Dunbar."

He glided away with a gloomy and displeased aspect; and thus out