Then with loud menaces I drove him to the wall where I made him stand with hands above his head Sir Cedric rose to his feet and for a moment looked from one to the other of our company With a mighty shout, we rode down upon the bridge, trusting all to the darkness and the fury of our attack CHAPTER I—THE SIEGE OF CASTLE MOUNTJOY That was a blithe spring morning when the messenger from the King brought to my father the order to join the army at Lincoln for the great expedition into Scotland. Six armored knights with their squires and a hundred men-at-arms made up the Mountjoy quota; and these my father, liege lord of the domain and loyal subject of the crown, lost no time in bringing together. Messengers, on horseback and afoot hurried out with his commands; and at the castle we were all in a pretty flurry of making ready. The armorers were hammering and riveting in the courtyard, making a most merry din; the big ox-carts lumbered in over the drawbridge, bearing meat and grain for my father’s company while on its way to the assembly ground and for us who were to remain at Mountjoy; and our men in their leathern jackets and hoods and with their cross-bows slung on their backs were coming in by ones and twos and in groups of half a score. Now my lady mother drew near to Father’s side as he watched the labor of the armorers, and I, having no will to lose any word of his, came forward also. “My lord,” she said, “I would speak with thee where the noise of these hammers will not deafen our ears.” My father laughed as one laughs at the sorriest jest when he is gay. “Gadzooks! my lady,” he said with a curtsy which my mother says he learned in Italy, and which, try as I may, I cannot copy—“a daughter of the Montmorencys should find in the din of armorers’ hammers a music far sweeter than that of the lute or viol.” “’Tis well enough,” said my mother, hurriedly, “and I should sorrow to live where it never was heard. But I have a grave matter upon which to consult thee. Hast thou given thought, my lord, to the castle’s defense during thine absence and that of the best part of our men?” My father’s brow became furrowed. I opened my mouth to speak, but Mother frowned at me so I held my peace. Methinks she sometimes thinks of me as naught more than a child, forgetting that it was my fifteenth birthday that we marked at Candlemas.