and beaten way before the King's
horses. Behind came an army of tent men: cooks, servers, and sutlers.
For, since they went where new castles were few, at times they must
sleep on moorsides, and they had tents all of gold cloth and black, with
gilded tent-poles and cords of silk and silver wire. The lords and
principal men of those parts came out to meet him with green boughs, and
music, and slain deer, and fair wooden kegs filled with milk. But when
he was come near to Berwick there was still no Scots King to meet him,
and it became manifest that the King's nephew would fail that tryst.
Henry, riding among his people, swore a mighty oath that he would take
way even into Edinburgh town and there act as he listed, for he had with
him nigh on seven thousand men of all arms and some cannon which he had
been minded to display for the instruction of his nephew. But he had, in
real truth, little stomach for this feat. For, if he would go into
Scotland armed, he must wait till he got together all the men that the
Council of the North had under arms. These were scattered over the whole
of the Border country, and it must be many days before he had them all
there together. And already the summer was well advanced, and if he
delayed much longer his return, the after progress from Pontefract to
London must draw them to late in the winter. And he was little minded
that either Katharine or his son should bear the winter travel. Indeed,
he sent a messenger back to Pontefract with orders that the Prince
should be sent forthwith with a great guard to Hampton Court, so that he
should reach that place before the nights grew cold.

And, having stayed in camp four days near the Scots border--for he loved
well to live in a tent, since it re-awoke in him the ardour of his youth
and made him think himself not so old a man--he delivered over to the
Earl Marshal forty Scots borderers and cattle thieves that had been
taken that summer. These men he had meant to have handed, pardoned, to
the Scots King when he met him. But the Earl Marshal set up, along the
road into Scotland, from where the stone marks the border, a row of
forty gallows, all high, but some higher than others; for some of the
prisoners were men of condition. And, within sight of a waiting crowd of
Scots that had come down to the boundaries of their land to view the
King of England, Norfolk hanged on these trees the forty men.

And, laughing over their shoulders at this fine harves