l childish and
unwise. Had his father been on the throne, no such thing had ever
happed: he wist how to deal with traitors. But now, with so slack an
hand did the King rule, that not only Sir Roger gat free of the Tower by
bribing one of his keepers and drugging the rest, but twenty good days
at the least were lost while he stale down to the coast and so won away.
There was indeed a hue and cry, but it wrought nothing, and even that
was not for a week. There was more diligence used to seize his lands
than to seize him. And at the end of all, just afore the Queen's
journey, if my Lady Mortimer his wife, that had gone down to Southampton
thinking to join him, was not taken and had to Skipton Castle, and the
young damsels, her children, that were with her, sent to separate
convents! I have ever believed that was the Queen's doing. It was she
that loved not the Lady Mortimer should go to France: it should have
interfered with her game. But what weakness and folly was it that the
King should hearken her! Well--

"Soft you, now!"

"O Jack, how thou didst start me! I very nigh let my pen fall."

"Then shouldst thou have inked thy tunic, Sissot; and it were pity, so
good Cologne sindon as it is. But whither goest thou with thy
goose-quill a-flying, good wife? Who was Sir Roger de Mortimer? and
what like was he?"

"Who was he, Jack?" quoth I, feeling somewhat took aback. "Why, he
was--he was Sir Roger de Mortimer."

"How like a woman!" saith Jack, setting his hands in the pockets of his
singlet.

"Now, Jack!" said I. "And what was he like, saidst thou? Why, he was
as like a traitor, and a wastrel, and every thing that was bad, as ever
I saw man in all my life."

"Horns, belike--and cloven feet--and a long tail?" quoth Jack. "I'll
give it up, Sissot. Thou wert best write thy chronicle thine own way.
But it goeth about to be rarely like a woman."

"Why, how should it not, when a woman is she that writeth it?" said I,
laughing. But Jack had turned away, with that comical twist of his
mouth which shows him secretly diverted.

Verily, I know not who to say Sir Roger was, only that he was Lord of
Wigmore and Ludlow, and son of the Lady Margaret that was born a
Fienles, and husband of the Lady Joan that was born a Geneville; and the
proudest caitiff and worst man that ever was, as shall be shown ere I
lay down my pen. He was man that caused the loss of himself and of
other far his betters, and that should