"Yes, my lady, he is Sir John de Barnoldswick, who accompanied my lord, and I fear me he brings intelligence of evil import."
"Admit him instantly, and bring him hither."
The rattling of the chains of the drawbridge was heard, and the sound of opening the ponderous castle gates, followed by the tramping of a horse in the courtyard, and the heavy footsteps of a steel-clad warrior on the stone stairs, and a tall, martial-looking figure, but with melancholy gait and drooping head, entered the room and made a profound obeisance to the lady of the castle, but without speaking a word of salutation.
"Whence comest thou, Sir Knight, and what are thy tidings?" inquired Lady Clifford, in tremulous accents.
"I come from the field of battle, lady, and my tidings are evil."
"Let us hear them; I am a soldier's wife, and ought not to shrink from calamitous intelligence," she replied, although her nervous trembling belied her utterance.
"Know, then, lady, that a great and disastrous battle has been fought near Tadcaster, and the Lancastrian cause lost. I fought till the last under the Clifford banner; saw many a brave fellow of the Vale of Craven fall around me, and barely escaped to bring the news hither."
"And what of the King and the brave Queen Margaret?"
"Alas! I know not; they and the Prince of Wales were in York when the battle was fought. All I know is that Somerset and the King's troops were utterly defeated, and fled northward, with Warwick and the Duke of York in hot pursuit."