I will wipe away the stain, if stain there be, at Kildrummie, an it be not surrendered ere we reach it." "The stain is with the base traitor Ross, not with thee or me," answered Hereford; "'tis that I abhor the nature of such expeditions, that I loathe, aye, loathe communication with such as he, and that--if it can be--that worse traitor Buchan, that makes me rejoice I have naught before me now but as fair a field as a siege may be.

Would to God, this devastating and most cruel war were over, I do say! on a fair field it may be borne, but not to war with women and children, as has been my fate." "Aye, by the way, this is not the first fair prize thou hast sent to Edward; the Countess of Buchan was a rare jewel for our coveting monarch--somewhat more than possession, there was room for vengeance there.

Bore she her captivity more queenly than the sobbing and weeping Margaret ?" The question was reiterated by most of the knights around the dais, but Hereford evidently shrunk from the inquiry.
"Speak not of it, I charge ye," he said.

"There is no room for jesting on grief as hers; majestic and glorious she was, but if the reported tale be true, her every thought, her every feeling was, as I even then imagined, swallowed up in one tearless and stern but all-engrossing anguish." "The reported tale! meanest thou the fate of her son ?" asked one of the knights.
"If it be true!" resumed another; "believest thou, my lord, there is aught of hope to prove it false ?" "More likely to be true than false," added Lancaster; "I can believe any thing of that dark scowling villain Buchan--even the murder of his child." "I believe it _not_," answered Hereford; "bad as that man is, hard in heart as in temper, he has too much policy to act thus, even if he had no feelings of nature rising to prevent it.

No, no; I would wager the ruby brooch in my helmet that boy lives, and his father will make use of him to forward his own interests yet." "But why then forge this tale ?" demanded their host; "how may that serve his purpose ?" "Easily enough, with regard to the vengeance we all know he vowed to wreak on his unhappy wife.