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.