And he scowled at my mother, for her comeliness; and yet looked under
his eyelids as if he liked her for it. But as for her, in her depth of
love-grief, it struck scorn upon her womanhood; and in the flash she
spoke.

'What you mean I know not. Traitors! cut-throats! cowards! I am here to
ask for my husband.' She could not say any more, because her heart
was now too much for her, coming hard in her throat and mouth; but she
opened up her eyes at him.

'Madam,' said Sir Ensor Doone--being born a gentleman, although a very
bad one--'I crave pardon of you. My eyes are old, or I might have known.
Now, if we have your husband prisoner, he shall go free without ransoms,
because I have insulted you.'

'Sir,' said my mother, being suddenly taken away with sorrow, because of
his gracious manner, 'please to let me cry a bit.'

He stood away, and seemed to know that women want no help for that. And
by the way she cried he knew that they had killed her husband. Then,
having felt of grief himself, he was not angry with her, but left her to
begin again.

'Loth would I be,' said mother, sobbing with her new red handkerchief,
and looking at the pattern of it, 'loth indeed, Sir Ensor Doone, to
accuse any one unfairly. But I have lost the very best husband God ever
gave to a woman; and I knew him when he was to your belt, and I not up
to your knee, sir; and never an unkind word he spoke, nor stopped
me short in speaking. All the herbs he left to me, and all the