Another glorious summer morning greeted the pilgrims at York; a morning so clear and splendid that it seemed to have lifted the gloom which covered the captured city, as the sun might dissipate a veil of mist. In spite of her fatigue of the day before, Frances was the first afoot, and at this setting forth Armstrong and old John were the laggards, as she blithely informed them when they appeared.

As they rode away from the ancient town the girl could scarcely refrain from joining the larks in their matin song, such a strange feeling of elation filled her being. She had had her first intoxicating taste of power; the supreme power of a beautiful woman over a strong, determined man. He had come to her the night before with resolution stamped on his masterful face; came of set purpose, a course of action well marked out for himself in the long dreary ride to York, and he announced that purpose to her, catching her entirely unaware. She was without experience in the ways of men, knowing nothing of them save such enlightenment as a sister might gather from a brother, and this knowledge she saw instinctively would be of no service in the contest that so unexpectedly confronted her. As boy and girl the arguments with her brother had been of the rough-and-tumble order, where the best man won and the other sat down and cried. Armstrong had said in effect, “I leave your company,” and a glance at his face left no doubt but he meant it. What instinct of heredity had placed her potent weapons silently before her; what unsuspected latent spirit of coquetry had taught her on the instant how to use them? A melting glance of the eyes; a low, lingering tone of voice; and this stubborn man was as wax in her hands. She had shorn him of his fixed intention, as Delilah had shorn Sampson of his locks; and as this simile occurred to her the spectre of her mission rose before her, and she remembered with a shudder that the parallel of Delilah held true in more senses than one. She glanced sideways at her Samson riding so easily on his splendid horse. What a noble-looking youth he was, and how well his new attire became him. Not any of the courtiers she had seen in the gay entourage of Charles in London could be compared with him. And what an ill-flavoured task was hers: to baffle him; to humiliate and defeat him; to send him crestfallen and undone to his own land! Delilah indeed! “The Philistines be upon thee, Samson!” Poor Samson! She had always been sorry for him, as she read, and now—now—hers was the role to wreck him! Again she glanced at him, and thus caught his gaze bent upon her. He smiled at her; was smiling when she turned her head.

“I can read your thoughts in your face,” he said.

“Can you?” she asked in alarm.

“Yes. At first the pure sweet beauty of the morning appealed to you. You were glad to leave the shut-in streets of the town and be once more in the fresh open country. The song of the birds charmed you, and had there been no listeners your voice would have joined theirs. When first I saw you, you were singing, and that was the morning of the day before yesterday; yet it seems ages past, and I have known you all my life. It was my ill-omened fate to break upon you with evil tidings, and a remembrance of my news disturbed you a moment since. The thought of your brother came to you, and the sunshine of your face died out in sorrow for him, wishing you had news of him. Do not be concerned for him. I have seen many a wound deeper than his, and they were of small account with youth and health to contend against them.”

The girl sighed and turned her face away, making no comment upon his conjectures, which were so far astray from accuracy. Why had she given no thought to her brother, whose welfare had never before been absent from her mind, yet who never before was in such danger as now? Why had a stranger’s image come between them, so monopolizing her mental vision that all her pity had been for him? Delilah was the stronger woman, with no qualms of conscience to unnerve her steady hand. She remembered her kin and wasted no thought on the stranger who fell in love with her in the valley of Sorek. “And when Delilah saw that he had told her all his heart, she sent and called for the lords of the Philistines saying, ‘Come up this once, for he hath shewed me all his heart.’ Then the lords of the Philistines came up unto her, and brought money in their hand.” Money in their hand! The price of a trusting man! Was there anything so baleful as that in all Scripture? When she presented Cromwell with the locks of Samson she would quote that sinister verse to him. Well this lord of the Philistines knew that her brother was not guilty of the treason for which he had been condemned. Cromwell came, not with money in his hand, but with life to be given or withheld, as foul play was successfully accomplished or the reverse. A helpless rage at the part assigned to her filled her heart with bitterness, and her eyes with tears.

“I wonder what valley this is we are descending?” said Armstrong.

“The valley of Sorek,” said her lips before her reason could check them.

“What?” cried the young man, amazed, although the reply gave him no hint of its inner meaning. Then he saw that some strong emotion had overpowered her, against which all her struggles were in vain. Instant sympathy with her sorrow manifested itself in his action. He brought his horse close beside her, reached out and touched her hand.

“Dear heart, do not grieve,” he said tenderly. “I pledge my faith your brother is better already. Would I had thought of it in time, and there might have been a horseman travelling all night to York, bringing you later tidings of him; but I am ever behindhand with my purposing, and remember a project when it is too late to put it into action. Many a fight that same backhandedness has led me into. I am for ever trusting the wrong man and laying myself open to his craft, yet am I hail-well-met with the next, learning no lesson from experience. Talking of this thrust your brother got, I remember well, two years ago, when three men who bore me no good will came to me and said the Earl of Traquair had bade them make peace with me. I was very willing and struck hands with them. So off we set together, at their behest, to Traquair’s Castle, that we might ratify our compact, for the Earl was a good friend of mine. We had gone near on five miles, and were chatting pleasantly together, when in the twinkling of an eye the three set on me. Three to one is no odds for an active man to grumble at if he can face them and has a rock or a tree at his back, but we were on the open plain, and I had a blade in my ribs before I could put hand to hilt. I drove Bruce at the first assailant and, ran him through as he went down. Then I cut for it till the followers were separated; so I turned on the one nearest me, gave him his dose, and chased the third man until I began to sway in my saddle. If he had but known and halted, he would have won an easy victory. Well, there were three good honest, satisfying wounds on three men,—each, I venture to say, worse than the one your brother got, and no doctor within thirty miles; yet the three of us are as hearty to-day as if we didn’t know what a sword was made for. So have no fear about your brother. He’ll be out and about by the time you are home again.”

“Your story reminds me of the Roman tale. It was a cowardly act of your three enemies.”

“I think it was rather that way. I did not heed their onslaught so much as their pretence of friendliness beforehand. Still, we mustn’t be too critical when a feud is forward. Things are done then that we are sorry for afterward.”

“I judge from what you say that you have forgiven the three?”

“Oh, as for that, I had forgotten all about them; it was your brother’s case brought them to mind. I suppose I have forgiven them; but if I met them on the road here I’d loosen the sword in its scabbard and be prepared for blade or hand, whichever they offered. But come, we have now a level road before us. Let us gallop. There’s nothing so cheers the mind as a charge on a good horse. We will make old John stir his stumps.”

They set off together, and old John did his best to keep them in sight. Some fourteen miles from York they baited their horses, then pushed on through Bawtry until Tuxford came in sight more than an hour and a half after noontide, a longer stretch than Armstrong thought good for either man or beast. It was not yet five in the morning when they left York, and with the exception of a bite and sup at their only halting-place they had nothing to eat until two o’clock. Many of the numerous inns along the road were deserted and in ruins; the farther south the journey was prolonged the more evident became the traces of war, and Armstrong found that he had scant choice as to resting-places.

“I hope,” said the girl, who knew the road, “that ‘The Crown at Tuxford has not been blown down again. It was a good inn.”

“More chance of its being blown up,” replied Armstrong, flippantly. “Was it blown down once?”

“Yes, about half a century since, in a tempest, but it was rebuilt. You should have a kindly feeling for it.”

“Why?”

“The Princess Margaret Tudor rested there in 1503, when she went to Scotland to marry your king.”

“By my forefathers, then, the ‘Crown’ is a place of evil omen for me. Would that the fair Margaret had slept in it on the night of the storm.”

“And now I ask, why?”

“Because her son, James V, came down to the Border, and by treachery collected the head of my clan, with about forty or more of his retainers, and hanged them, denying either trial or appeal. Jamie missed those twoscore men later in life, when his cowardly crew deserted him. We Armstrongs seem ever to have been a confiding race of simpletons, believing each man’s word to be true as the steel at his side. Margaret was as false as fair, and a poor Queen for Scotland, yet here am I now risking life or liberty for one of her breed, the descendant of those fell Stuarts who never honoured woman or kept faith with man.”

“Sir, what are you saying?” cried the girl, aghast at the unheeding confession into which his impetuosity had carried him.

“God! You may well ask!” said the young man, startled in his turn at the length he had gone. “Still, it does not matter, for you would be the last to betray me. I’ll tell you all about it some day, and we will laugh over our march together, if you forget what I said just now. The end of our expedition is not to be the end of our acquaintance, I hope, and you live but a day’s march from the Border. Will you let me take the day’s march in your direction, now that I know the way?”

“I make no promise until we reach home again. Then you may not wish to make the journey.”

“Little fear of that. I must see you again, if only to tell you of my luck in cattle-dealing, at which you showed such scorn yesterday.”

“Do not let us speak of that. There is ‘The Crown’ inn; and even if the shade of the Princess Margaret does not haunt it, I am pleased to see there are people more substantial around its doors. It is not deserted.

“It is level with the times. The crown is blotted from the signboard, although some of the old gilding shines through the new paint.”

It was late in the afternoon before they were on horse again, and they jogged down the road at an easy amble. Newark was passed, but they did not stop there longer than was necessary to show their permission to travel, for Newark had been a Royal town garrisoned for the King and besieged more than once. Armstrong had intended to stay the night there; but the authorities showed some reluctance in accepting a pass for two as convoy for three, and it needed all the young man’s eloquence and insistance on respect for Cromwell’s signature to get old John past the barriers, so when once this permission was granted he thought it well to push on clear of the place and risk the danger of camping out beside the road.

His luck still stood his friend, and at Grantham, some ten miles farther on, as the sun was setting, they came to the ancient archway of “The Angel” inn, a house that gave every indication of furnishing the best of cheer.

“At last,” cried Armstrong, “we have shaken off the omens, and I find a lodging fit for you. ‘The Angel’ for an angel, say I, and here it is. No haunting Margaret of the past, nor inquisitive Roundhead of the present to molest us.”

“I am not so sure,” laughed Frances. “If ghosts walk these planks, you may wish the graceful Margaret in their stead. In one of the rooms of this house Richard III signed the death-warrant of the Duke of Buckingham. The place hints the fall of kings.”

“Lord, lassie, you know too much history and too many legends of this gloomy land. I wish we were safe back in the North again.”

“So do I,” she said with a sigh, as he helped her down from her horse.