“Tell us of it, I pray thee,” said my father, eagerly, “if so be thou canst do so with full loyalty to thy house.” “Nay. My Lord Morton conceals naught. It was Sir Boris, his son, that was to blame, and he denies it not. Lord Morton is an upright man and a just; but for years he hath tried in vain to curb the wildness of young Sir Boris. Drink and dice have been the young lord’s ruin as of many a better man before. Only a fortnight since, Lord Morton forbade him, on pain of his worst displeasure, to bring any dice, those tools of the Devil, into Morton Hall. More than that, he drove from the very door two of the young bloods from Shrewsbury who had been the young lord’s boon companions in drinking and gaming.” “But how did this touch our Marvin? He was not lodged in Morton Hall, I trow.” “Nay, my lord. Marvin came three days ago to the cottage in Morton Wood where his brother, the forester, lay in his last illness. ’Twas none too soon, i’ faith, for hardly more than a day later, Old Gilbert breathed his last. That was toward sundown; and Marvin, who had been joined by some stranger lad, prepared to spend one more night in the cottage to look after his brother’s body, which they planned to bury on the morrow. This I knew, for my Lord Morton had sent me there for word of the forester; and I brought back the news to the Hall. “A little later I had commands from young Sir Boris to join him in his hunting lodge in the wood, for that he should meet some friends there in the evening, and I should wait on them with food and drink. I well knew that this was but a trick to set at naught the orders of my Lord Morton; and now I have sorrow that I did not instantly acquaint him with it. But Sir Boris was a willful man and very ill to oppose; so I obeyed him, thinking that ’twas better there should be at the lodge one man at least of sober head than that the party should be served by some of our young kitchen knaves who think of naught themselves but drink and lawless living.