At length the festivities were finished and life went on quietly as before, Isabel remained in the palace at Westminster, and daily rode out past the marshy ground which is now Conduit Street, where flag flowers and forget-me-nots and marsh marigolds might be plucked in spring, and wildfowl were shot when the weather grew colder. Or sometimes she would accompany the king and his friends to a grand hunt after boar or deer in the woods that lay about the stream called the West Bourne, whence the chase would often lead them eastwards to the heathery spaces beyond what was afterwards the Moorgate. When it grew too dark or too wet for these sports, Richard would bid the queen play to him, and he could correct her faults as well as any master; or she would try and speak English to him, and they would both laugh heartily over the blunders she made. Thus the days went by, and Richard was so good and kind to her that Isabel was perfectly happy, and thought him the most wonderful person in all the world. She did her utmost to please him and to take an interest in all he told her, and she noticed with pride that he never treated her as a little girl, but talked to her as he might have done to a grown-up woman. Inside the palace all was peace; but outside the people had begun to murmur again, and faces grew dark at the sound of Richard's name, and men spoke of the debts that were daily increasing and the taxes that were ever growing. But if Richard took no heed of these signs, there was one person who never failed to watch and listen, and every now and then to put in a careless word, which somehow always made matters worse. This was the duke of Gloucester, uncle to the king, and a great favourite of the Londoners. He, like them, wished for war with France, and lost no opportunity of letting his views be known on the subject. When things seemed ripe the duke sent for the earl of March, next heir to the kingdom, to his castle of Pleshy in Essex, and there unfolded to him a plot which he and the earl of Arundel had woven between them. It was not without some hesitation that the duke of Gloucester told his tale to the earl of March, for he knew that his great-nephew was a true and loyal man, and that he dearly loved the king his cousin. But he had prepared a bait which he thought could not fail to land the most obstinate fish, only he resolved not to speak of that till the end of his story. Therefore he began by relating all Richard's acts of misgovernment—and they were many—and the burdens laid on his subjects, which were many also. The two earls nodded their heads. What Gloucester said was nothing but truth, and well they knew it. But how to find a remedy? _That_, as they say, needed sharper wits than theirs. Then Gloucester proceeded, choosing his words carefully, but in spite of all his prudence he saw March beginning to move uneasily.