said Henry, less loudly, less hotly, but still with an agony of
indignation: 'Thomas is dead--and by the hand of two of your traitor
Scots!'

'Murdered!' cried James, aghast.

'Murdered by all honest laws of war, but on the battlefield,' said Henry.
'Your cousin of Buchan and old Douglas fell on my brave fellows at
Beauge, when they were spent with travel to stop the robberies in Anjou.
They closed in with their pikes on my brave fellows, took Somerset
prisoner, and for Thomas, while he was dealing with a knight named
Swinton in front, the villain Buchan comes behind and cleaves his head in
twain; and that is what you Scots call fighting!'

'It was worthy of a son of Albany!' said James. 'Would that vengeance
were in my power!'

'Ay, you loved him!' said Henry, grasping James's hand, his passion
softened into a burst of tears, as he wrung his prisoner's hand. 'Nay,
who did not love him, my brave, free-hearted brother? And that I--I
should have dallied here and left him to bear the brunt, and be cut off
by you felon Scots!' And he hid his face, struggling within an agony of
heart-rending grief, which seemed to sway his whole tall, powerful frame
as he leant against the high back of a chair; while John, together with
James, was imploring him not to accuse himself, for his presence had been
needful at home; and, to turn the tenor of his thought, James inquired
whether there were any further disaster.

'Not as yet,' said Henry; 'there is not a man left in that
heaven-abandoned crew who knows how to profit by what they have got! but
I must back again ere the devil stir them up a man of wit!--And you, Sir,
can you take order with these heady Scots?'

'From Windsor? no,' said James; 'but set me in the saddle, let me learn
war under such a captain as yourself, and maybe they will not take the
field against me; or if they do, the slayer of Clarence shall rue it.'

'Be it so,' said Henry, wringing his hand. 'You shall with me to France,
Jamie, and see war. The Scots should flock to the Lion rampant, and
without them the French are mo better than deer, under the fool and
murderer they call Dauphin. Yet, alas! will any success give me back my
brother--my brother, the brave and true?' he added, weeping again within
time _abandon_ of an open nature and simple age. 'It was for my sins, my
forgetfulness of my great work, that this has come on me.--Ho, Marmion!
carry these tidings from me to the Dean; pray him that the k