“Welladay, my dearest Kate! Not quite so fast and I will tell thee. The Scots are beaten; and we of Mountjoy had an honorable share in it. The campaign goes on, but a loyal youth from Mountjoy village found me after the battle and told of the doings of the traitor, Carleton. Straightway I took the boy before the King. And he being pleased with some work I had done that day, did bid me take ten of my best men, make my choice of ten horses from his train, and ride post haste to the relief of my house and my lady. We reached the Tarn Rock, half a league from here, at nightfall, and reconnoitered Carleton’s camp. He being in greater force than we could cope with at once, I bethought me of this old passage from the wood two furlongs off. And so I have been tap, tap tapping for an hour, hoping at last to get the news of my coming to thee. And art thou well, my Kate? And have the rascals done aught to harm thee or Dickon here?” “Not a whit, my lord. Save for an arrow stroke our Dickon hath come by in open fight, and which is already nearly healed. They have made some mighty threats, and would have carried them through with right good will could they have reached us; but, thanks to Dickon, to old Marvin here and the others, they got much worse than they gave. Many a Carleton knave will ne’er cut another throat, be it of man or pig; and the Old Wolf himself was very near to his just reward in the shape of a good steel bolt from Marvin’s bow.” On the ramparts next morning swung my father’s banner of purple and gold. Watching our enemies’ camp, I could plainly see that the display of this flag, which they knew should signify naught else than the presence of the head of our house, early brought most of them, and finally the Gray Wolf himself, to gaze at the flagstaff. They were telling one another, as I could well imagine, that this was but a ruse on the part of the castle’s mistress, intended to deceive them into the belief that Lord Mountjoy had come through their lines in the night. What was their surprise therefore, when Lord Mountjoy appeared on the battlements in full armor and wearing the purple plume he had brought from Italy, and yet more when they saw him attended and followed as he was. Armored knights, in numbers they could not tell, came into sight and passed from view on the battlements and at the casements. We could fairly see the rumor flying through the Carleton camp that Lord Mountjoy had returned with all his men and by stealth or by magic had passed their sentinels during the night. The Gray Wolf stared long and viciously at our battlements, and called on those with younger eyes to make sure of what he saw. Then with oaths and curses that made his men quail before him, he gave orders to break camp and return to Teramore.