"I trow the Prince might thank me more for bringing in this charge of
thine."

"Small thanks, I trow, for laying hands on a poor orphan--the son of
a Poitevin man-at-arms--that I kept with me for love of his father,
though he is fitter for a convent than the green wood!" added Adam,
with the same sound of keen reproach and disappointment in his voice.

"That shall we learn at Guildford," replied the stranger. "There are
means of teaching a man to speak."

"None that will serve with me," stoutly responded Adam.

"That shall we see," was the brief answer.

And he signed to his prisoners to move on before him, taking care so
to interpose his stately person between them, that there should be no
communication by word, far less by look.



CHAPTER II--THE LADY OF THE FOREST



"Behold how mercy softeneth still
The haughtiest heart that beats:
Pride with disdain may he answered again,
But pardon at once defeats!"--S. M.