They had cast out all the men-at-arms that were any way faithful to the Young Lovell, taking away their arms too. For they, with their armed men, had been in possession of the Castle and had taken the keys of the armoury, whilst the Lovell men were without arms and leaderless. So that some of the Lovell men had become bedesmen at the monastery at Belford, and many perished miserably about the country in the great storm of the second day of April, whilst some had taken to robbery, which was all that was left them. Those in the Castle had hired men from the false Scots and other ragged companions of the Vesty that was Sir Symonde's brother, and there they all dwelt comfortable, having between them about three hundred men-at-arms and a numerous army of bowmen, but no cannon. They deemed that they could well await any assault of the Young Lovell if he should return. They considered that he had been slain by the outlaw Elliotts, who had been seen to ride by, three miles north of the Castle, going up into the Cheviots.
But all these things happened only after they had settled with the Lady Margaret in that little room. And that had happened in this way, Elizabeth Campstones said:
After the lawyer told her the tale about the fair witches she had broken into no cries and oaths as he had expected; not even when he had particularised one witch with red hair and great breasts that danced and sprang all naked over a broomstick, with her hair tossing, and how the Young Lovell had singled this witch out for favours apart. The Lady Margaret said only—
"And so you two and the Decies...."
"We stood there weeping and lamenting," the lawyer said.
"I marvel that not one of you had heart to adventure for the caresses of such fair women as you have told me of. Had ye been men ye would."
The lawyer answered with an accent of horror:
"But witches and warlocks!"
"Ah, I had forgotten," the lady said. "So ye wept and turned your heads away. And afterwards?"
"After they were gone," Magister Stone answered, "we fell to devising how we might rescue you, ah gentle lady, from that lost knight and himself from himself." That was to be in this way: The Decies should seek to possess himself of the lands, knighthood and name of the Young Lovell, and, if he did this with the irrevocable blessing of the Lord Bishop, the act of the Border Warden, who in those parts stood for the King, as well as in presence of his father, he might establish a very good title whether of presumption or possession. And if in the same way he might be betrothed to the Lady Margaret in the presence of the Lady Rohtraut to whom she was ward and with the formal rite of the Church, which like the other is irrevocable, the Young Decies would be in a very fair way to achieve his pious desires.