"Is the Lady Mabel in health?—and the children?" inquired the stranger.
"Sorely did she grieve when tidings came of Sir William's death in the great battle; but sorer still rues she her wedding with Sir Osmund Neville. Poor soul! It would melt the nails out of a rusty horse-shoe to see how she moans herself, when she can steal privily to her chamber. They say the knight caught her weeping once over some token that belonged to Sir William, and he burnt it before her face, ill-treating her into the bargain."
"How came she to wed this churl?"
"Oh, it's a sorry history!"—The speaker paused, and it was at the pilgrim's entreaty that he thus continued:—
"Parson Cliderhow had his paw in the mischief. She was in a manner forced either to wed, or, in the end, to have found herself and her children with never a roof-tree above their heads."
"How?—Sir William did not leave her portionless?"
"I know not; but Sir Osmund had, or pretended he had, got a grant from the Earl of Lancaster for possession of all that belonged to Sir William, as a reward for his great services; and unless she wed him—why, you may guess what follows, when a lone woman is left in a wooer's clutches. I shall never forget their wedding-day; it should rather have been her burying, by the look on't. Her long veil was more like a winding-sheet than a bride's wimple."
During this recital the palmer drew his seat closer to the hearth. He leant him over his staff, absorbed in that conscious stupor which seems at once shut out from all connection with
external objects, and yet intensely alive to their impressions. Suddenly he rose, tightened his sandals, and looking round, appeared as if about to depart.
"It is our late master's birthday," said the loquacious informant: "ten years ago there was free commons at the hall for man and beast. Now, save on almous-days, when some half-dozen doitering old bodies get a snatch at the broken meat, not a man of us thrusts his nose into the knight's buttery but by stealth. Sir William's banner has not been hoisted, as it was wont on this day, since he left, with fifty armed men in his train, to help the king, then hard pressed in the Scottish wars. Ye may get an alms among the poor to-day, but have an eye to the Welsh bowmen: these be the knight's privy guard, and hold not the quality of his guests in much respect."