Lady Clifford sat in silence, brooding in thought over her absent husband, with an occasional heavy-drawn sigh; the children were gambolling about the room in innocent unconsciousness of the perils to which their father was exposed; the chaplain joined in their romps, and amused them by telling them tales of Fairyland and the good deeds of holy saints; and the handmaidens were sitting apart, plying their distaffs and spinning-wheels, and indulging in the usual gossip of an isolated castle and the surrounding village, but maintained it in an undertone, so as not to disturb the meditations of their lady. "What a fearful night it is," said Lady Clifford, as a terrific gust of wind came roaring round the towers of the castle, seeming almost to shake them to their foundations, stoutly as they were built. "It is terrible even here, sitting as we are under the protection of these strong walls; what must it be to those who are exposed to its fury, camped, perchance, on some wild moor, and surrounded by enemies?" At this moment a trumpet summons for admittance to the castle was heard; and presently the seneschal entered the room, stating that a knight was without the gate with tidings of great importance. "Who is he?" asked Lady Clifford. "Do you know him?" "Yes, my lady, he is Sir John de Barnoldswick, who accompanied my lord, and I fear me he brings intelligence of evil import." "Admit him instantly, and bring him hither." The rattling of the chains of the drawbridge was heard, and the sound of opening the ponderous castle gates, followed by the tramping of a horse in the courtyard, and the heavy footsteps of a steel-clad warrior on the stone stairs, and a tall, martial-looking figure, but with melancholy gait and drooping head, entered the room and made a profound obeisance to the lady of the castle, but without speaking a word of salutation. "Whence comest thou, Sir Knight, and what are thy tidings?" inquired Lady Clifford, in tremulous accents. "I come from the field of battle, lady, and my tidings are evil." "Let us hear them; I am a soldier's wife, and ought not to shrink from calamitous intelligence," she replied, although her nervous trembling belied her utterance. "Know, then, lady, that a great and disastrous battle has been fought near Tadcaster, and the Lancastrian cause lost. I fought till the last under the Clifford banner; saw many a brave fellow of the Vale of Craven fall around me, and barely escaped to bring the news hither." "And what of the King and the brave Queen Margaret?" "Alas! I know not; they and the Prince of Wales were in York when the battle was fought. All I know is that Somerset and the King's troops were utterly defeated, and fled northward, with Warwick and the Duke of York in hot pursuit." "And what of my lord? Fled he too? He would never turn his back to the foes of his King." "He did not, lady; had he been present, the result might have been different. He was not in the engagement."