father."

Lady Chadgrove looked anxious for a moment, but her brow soon
cleared as she made answer: "I shall be sorry if aught comes to
grieve or vex your father; but so long as we are careful to give no
just cause for offence, we need not trouble our heads overmuch as
to the jealous anger of the Lord of Mortimer. I misdoubt me if he
can really hurt us, be he never so vindictive. The king is just,
and he values the services of your father. He will not permit him
to be molested without cause. And methinks my Lord of Mortimer
knows as much, else he would have wrought us more ill all these
past years."

"He is a tyrant and an evil liver!" cried Bertram hotly; "and his
servants be drunken, brawling knaves, every one--as insolent as
their master. If I had been old Ralph, I would have hurled back his
missive in his face, and bidden him deliver it rightly."

"Nay, nay, my son; that would but be to stir up strife. If others
comport themselves ill, that is no reason why our servants should
do the like. I would never give a foe a handle against me by the
ill behaviour of even a serving man. Let them act never so surlily,
I would that they were treated with all due courtesy."

Bertram and Julian hardly entered into their mother's feelings on
this point; but Edred looked up eagerly, and it was plain that he
understood the feelings which prompted the words, for he said in a
low voice:

"Methinks thou art right, gentle mother; albeit I did sorely long