s in
England," he was used to submit.

Thus it fell out that Sir Gregory came and went at his own discretion
as concerned Lord Berners' fief of Ordish, all through those gusty
times of warfare between Sire Edward and Queen Ysabeau, until at last
the Queen had conquered. Lord Berners, for one, vexed himself not
inordinately over the outcome of events, since he protested the King's
armament to consist of fools and the Queen's of rascals; and had with
entire serenity declined to back either Dick or the devil.

It was in the September of this year, a little before Michaelmas, that
they brought Sir Gregory Darrell to be judged by the Queen, for
notoriously the knight had been Sire Edward's adherent. "Death!"
croaked Adam Orleton, who sat to the right hand, and, "Young de
Spencer's death!" amended the Earl of March, with wild laughter; but
Ysabeau leaned back in her great chair--a handsome woman, stoutening
now from gluttony and from too much wine--and regarded her prisoner
with lazy amiability, and devoted the silence to consideration of how
scantily the man had changed.

"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she demanded in the
ultimate--"or are you mad, then, Gregory Darrell, that you dare ride
past my gates alone?"

He curtly said, "I rode for Ordish."

Followed silence. "Roger," the Queen ordered, sharply, "give me the
paper which I would not sign."

The Earl of March had drawn an audible breath. The Bishop of London
somewhat wrinkled his shaggy brows, as a person in shrewd and epicurean
amusement, what while she subscribed the parchment within the moment,
with a great scrawling flourish.

"Take, in the devil's name, the hire of your dexterities," said
Ysabeau, and pushed this document with her wet pen-point toward March,
"and ride for Berkeley now upon that necessary business we know of.
And do the rest of you withdraw, saving only my prisoner--my prisoner!"
she said, and laughed not very pleasantly.

[Illustration: "'MY PRISONER!' SHE SAID" _Painting by Howard Pyle_]

Followed another silence. Queen Ysabeau lolled in her carven chair,
considering the comely gentleman who stood before her, fettered, at the
point of shameful death. There was a little dog in the room which had
come to the Queen, and now licked the palm of her left hand, and the
soft lapping of its tongue was the only sound you heard. "So at peril
of your life you rode for Ordish, then, messire?"

The tense man had flushed. "You