"What of my dame and daughter, Edgar?" the knight asked, as the king turned away.
"They are both safe, and at their former lodging, Sir Ralph. Dame Agatha sent me here to acquaint you where they were to be found; she knew that you would be very anxious as to their safety."
"I thank her for the thought," the knight said, turning his horse's head to go there. "Where have you and Albert been for the last two days?"
"We have slept at the lodgings, Sir Ralph, and during the day have traversed the city in sober clothes watching what has been done."
"Then you have seen scenes which must have made you almost ashamed of being an Englishman," Sir Ralph said, angrily. "This has been a disgraceful business. It was bad enough to destroy John of Gaunt's palace; for, although I love not Lancaster greatly, it was an ornament to London and full of costly treasures. For this, however, there was some sort of excuse, but not so for the burning of the Temple, still less for the destruction of the great house of the Knights of St. John, and also the manor-house of the prior of the order. I hear to-day that great numbers of Flemings have been slain, their houses pillaged, and in some cases burnt. Now comes the crowning disgrace. That the Tower of London, garrisoned by 1,200 men, and which ought to have defied for weeks the whole rabbledom of England, should have opened its gates without a blow being struck, and the garrison remained inert on the walls while the king's mother was being grossly insulted, and the two highest dignitaries of the state with others massacred is enough, by my faith, to make one forswear arms, put on a hermit's dress and take to the woods. Here we are!"
The knight's two retainers ran up to take his horse as he entered the gateway; and, vaulting off, he hurried into the house.
"Why, Agatha, you are strangely pale! What has happened? I have not had time yet to question Edgar, and, indeed, have been talking so fast myself that he has had no chance of explaining how you and Aline managed to get here. You came by water, I suppose, and so escaped that crowd of knaves round the Tower?"
"No, Sir Ralph, we escaped under the protection of your son and this brave youth. Had it not been for them we should surely have suffered indignity and perhaps death."
"What! were they in the Tower? How got they there, wife?"
"I have had no time to ask questions yet, husband, having been attending Aline, who fainted after bearing up bravely until we got here. She has but a few minutes since come out of her swoon, and I have stayed with her."