The colour came up in the old Earl de Ashby's cheek.
"The house of Ashby, my lord," he replied, "permits no one to dictate to it, what is for its honour to do."
"Far less," cried Alured, "will it allow an ancient enemy, presuming on the forbearance which has already given pardon and forgiveness for many offences, to bring false charges against one of its members, and then dictate how its chief is to act!"
"Pardon and forgiveness!" exclaimed Hugh de Monthermer--"false charges! These are strange terms. As to the truth of the accusation, if your base kinsman, sir, dares to put forth still the lying pretext that he made use of when last I saw him, and to lay, upon the same scapegoat, the blame of corresponding with the enemies of the state and of carrying off this poor girl, his falsehood now can soon be proved, for she has been seen with him in this very city."
Alured looked down and bit his lip; and the old Lord of Monthermer, anxious to prevent the house of Ashby from abandoning that cause which he conceived to be just and right, interposed in the calm, grave manner which was usual with him, saying--"Do not suppose, my noble friend, that my Lord of Leicester wishes to dictate to you in any degree. It is fair that he should submit for your consideration whether it will not be more honourable to your family to clear it of the stain which this man's conduct leaves upon it."
"I can meddle, my lord, with no man's pastimes," said the Earl de Ashby, carried away by the example of his son. "Richard de Ashby is not my page, for me to chastise him, if he plays the fool with a peasant's daughter. I cannot meddle in the matter."
"Would your lordship not have meddled," asked De Montfort, sternly, "if your daughter's freedom had still depended on it. Methinks you would then have found right soon motives sufficient to interfere, and that somewhat vigorously."
"Well, my lord," cried the Earl, in an angry tone,--for where weakness goes hand in hand with wrong, wrath is never far behind; "at all events, it is no affair of yours! This is no public matter, but a private business, put upon me by Lord Hugh of Monthermer."
"Nay, my good lord--nay!" exclaimed Hugh, "most unwillingly did I undertake it; but surely you would not have had me risk your daughter's liberation, by hesitating to convey to you a mere demand, which, without obtaining her deliverance at all, might have been sent by any other person."
"And carried by any other, with much more grace than by a pretended friend," rejoined Alured de Ashby.