"Sir Aymer, you ask for that which no man has ever had from me. Many times--and I say it without pride--has it been sought by Knights most worthy; yet to them all have I ever given nay. Beatrix de Beaumont bestows nor gage nor favor until she plight her troth." With a smile, whose sweetness De Lacy long remembered in after days, she gave him her hand, and he bent low over it and touched it to his lips. Then suddenly she whisked it from him and was gone behind the arras. VIII THE INN OF NORTHAMPTON When De Lacy--now in ordinary riding dress, his armor having been relegated to the baggage beasts--reached the main highway the following morning, he looked in vain for the dust of Gloucester's column or the glimmer of sun on steel. The road was deserted. Not a traveler was in sight, and there being no means of ascertaining if the Duke had passed, he adopted the only safe course and took up the march for London. Presently, upon cresting a hill, they met a pair of Black Friars trudging slowly along towards York; but little information was obtained from them, for they had not been on the road yesterday, having spent the last week at a neighboring monastery, which they had quit only that morning. It was rumored there, however, that the Duke of Gloucester had passed southward the prior day with a great train of attendants. This, at least, was some slight indication, and thanking them courteously De Lacy jogged on; but it was not until they reached Doncaster, about noon, that accurate knowledge of the Duke was obtained. Halting before the inn of the "Silver Sun," a ramshackle old house, from over whose door, as proclaiming the character of the place, projected a long pole with a bunch of furze on the end, De Lacy called, "Ho, within!" The landlord, a big, blear-eyed rogue, much the worse for wear and ale, came shambling out at the summons. His listlessness vanished quickly enough, however, at sight of the Knight and his following; and bowing to the ground he asked how he might serve them. "With food and drink, good fellow," said De Lacy; "and that right quickly." "Your worship shall be accommodated immediately with what I have," said the man with another bow that almost overbalanced him, "but if it is meagre, blame the Duke of Gloucester and his men." "His Grace has passed?" asked Aymer. "God's truth! he has," said the fellow. "He precedes you by a day. And, saving your lordship, if you travel to the Coronation, methinks you will have but scant fare along the road. They eat things clean as they go--but pay good silver for it." "How many has the Duke in his train?" "At least six hundred, I should say." "He has doubled his force since he left Pontefract," observed Aymer to his squire, as the inn-keeper retired. "And there may be truth in what the rogue says--we may find slender provision in the wake of such a column."