CHAPTER XXVI.
"The tears I shed must ever fall.
I weep not for an absent swain; For time may happier hours recall, And parted lovers meet again.
"I weep not for the silent dead.
Their pains are past, their sorrows o'er; And those that loved their steps must tread, When death shall join to part no more." But worse than absence, worse than death, She wept her lover's sullied fame, And, fired with all the pride of birth, She wept a soldier's injured name.
BALLAD.
The frank and bold voice of Richard was heard in joyous gratulation.
"Thomas de Vaux! stout Tom of the Gills! by the head of King Henry, thou art welcome to me as ever was flask of wine to a jolly toper! I should scarce have known how to order my battle-array, unless I had thy bulky form in mine eye as a landmark to form my ranks upon.

We shall have blows anon, Thomas, if the saints be gracious to us; and had we fought in thine absence, I would have looked to hear of thy being found hanging upon an elder-tree." "I should have borne my disappointment with more Christian patience, I trust," said Thomas de Vaux, "than to have died the death of an apostate.

But I thank your Grace for my welcome, which is the more generous, as it respects a banquet of blows, of which, saving your pleasure, you are ever too apt to engross the larger share.

But here have I brought one to whom your Grace will, I know, give a yet warmer welcome." The person who now stepped forward to make obeisance to Richard was a young man of low stature and slight form.

His dress was as modest as his figure was unimpressive; but he bore on his bonnet a gold buckle, with a gem, the lustre of which could only be rivalled by the brilliancy of the eye which the bonnet shaded.