The Lady Margaret said that that was the very properest scheme she had ever heard for the taking of a castle, part by stratagem and part by force. And they walked, devising of that scheme for a long time, beneath the night-black boughs, with the thin white moon that peeped between and the swiftness of the river below their feet. And ever the Lady Margaret was aware of a bitter grief in his tones, spake he never so hotly. Ever the Young Lovell was aware that the thought of marrying with this woman was an intolerable weariness to him, though she was gallant and fair and loving. He looked upon her face in the moonlight and saw how fair it was with the shadows of the hazel wands across it. That place was called the banks of Cramlin, and bitter banks they were to him. For there was no mark against that lady and none in those parts could be a fitting mate for him but she. And he considered how she had cherished him and helped him, and that he had no grief against her. Ever he sighed deeply and yet talked of the joy they would have in pleasaunces and in the wilderness hawking, in devising, in the stables, picking the wild flowers in spring, watching their husbandmen with the ploughs, sitting in the little chambers before the fire in winter, and at bed and board. And ever the Lady Margaret put aside the talking of those things and talked of firing cannon into Castle Lovell with the bitter tears on her lids. She knew him so well she read his heart. So with a heavy sigh he kissed her on the cheek her that had been used to lie in his arms, and her tears were wet upon his lips, and in the darkness, amidst the waternoises of those Cramlin banks—for the miller had let down his sluices whilst they talked—amidst the glimmer of the birch trunks that grew with the hazels, he left her that he should never see again for many weary years. Then, with his fifty bondsmen, he rode north into the black night beyond the ford.