"Well, go you and make common cause with them," the Lady Margaret said to him contemptuously. "So you will save your neck.
"Ah, but no," he answered miserably but with a sort of professional and cunning air. "I must be on the side of the law."
"Then what does the law say?" she asked as bitterly. "I will warrant you will not be far from the top dog."
He began, however, to whine and wring his hands and said that he had not long to live if he could not win these ladies to do the wills of the violent people who had taken that Castle, not but what it might not be said that they had not some shew of equity on their sides.
"I thought we should come near there," the Lady Margaret said; "come, Master, what is the worst on 't?"
"Ah, gentle lady," the lawyer said, "this is at the best a grievous matter; at the worst it is...." And he waved his hand as if there were no speaking of it.
"Go on," the Lady Margaret said grimly.
"I have been so confused," the lawyer answered, "with much running here and there and seeing such blood flow and the hearing of such threats...."
"Come, come," the lady said, "you are a man of law and such a clever one that if I threw you out of this window you could tell the law of it or ever you fell to the ground."
"I am not saying," he retorted, with a sort of relish, "that I go in doubts concerning the law. What perplexes and affrights me is the fall of great and powerful lords. As to the torts, replevins, fines, amercements and the other things too numerous to recite, I am clear enough."