She kissed and admired the infant, inquired of Margaret's health, bade her hope for better days, and then proceeded to talk of affairs at the castle;how the baroness still continued to weep and lament; and how De Boteler, ever since he had returned from London, had been almost distractedone minute crying and raving that there was some traitor at the castle who had connived at the abduction of his child, and that he would discover him and hang him up without form of trial,and the next offering large rewards and free pardon to any one who could give the slightest information, even though they should have aided in the theft;and once he even went so far as to promise pardon to the actual offender. As, of course, this strange occurrence had been a prolific source of speculation to the gossips, Lucy proceeded to detail a number of stories she had heard on the subject.
FORE:"Alas! alas!" exclaimed a solitary wanderer among the multitude, as he turned away sorrowfully from the gaudy display, "alas, for this great city, which was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearlfor in one hour will she be made desolate: and, instead of a stomacher, have only a girding of sackcloth, and burning instead of beauty." But he had hardly repeated these words, ere a full stream of music, swelling in the air, overpowered the hum that arose from the multitude, and John Ballfor it was the degraded priest who had spokenimagining this to be a prelude to the appearance of the young king, mounted upon a door-step, and, from this slight elevation, and favoured by his stature, he obtained a full view of the procession, which almost immediately passed."Kip calm, ladkip calm. There's naun there, naun, I tell you."
The page withdrew, and De Boteler, after perusing the parchment, presented it to Richard. It ran thus: "A retainer of the Lord de Boteler, will come, unarmed and alone, beneath the southern battlements, at ten o'clock. He is a leader of the commons, but, being touched with remorse, he will, if admitted before the king in council, disclose all the secrets of the rebels."He kept his body motionless, but in his heart strange things were moving. That hatred which had run through him like a knife just before he lost consciousness in the battle of Boarzell, suddenly revived and stabbed him again. It was no longer without focus, and it was no longer without purpose. Boarzell ... the name seemed to dance before him in letters of fire and blood. He was suffering for Boarzellhis father had not been robbed, for his father did not care, but he, Reuben, had been robbedand he had fought for Boarzell on Boarzell, and now he was bearing shame and pain for Boarzell. Somehow he had never till this day, till this moment, been so irrevocably bound to the land he had played on as a child, on which he had driven his father's cattle, which had broken with its crest the sky he gazed on from his little bed. Boarzell was his, and at the same time he hated Boarzell. For some strange reason he hated it as much as those who had taken it from him and as those who were punishing him because of it. He wanted to tame it, as a man tames a bull, with a ring in its nose.
