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 has found since then, perhaps, to wish that he had been one.

With his white locks moving upon his coat, he stopped and looked down at my mother, and she could not help herself but courtesy under the fixed black gazing.

"Good woman, you are none of us. Who has brought you hither? Young men must be young—but I have had too much of this work."

And he scowled at my mother, for her comeliness; and yet looked under his eyelids as if he liked her for it. But as for her, in the depth of love-grief, it struck scorn upon her womanhood; and in the flash she spoke.

"What you mean, I know not. Traitors! cut-throats! cowards! I am here to ask for my husband." She could not say any more, because her heart was now too much for her, coming hard in her throat and mouth; but she opened up her eyes at him.

"Madam," said Sir Ensor Doone—being born a gentleman, although a very bad one—"I crave pardon of you. My eyes are old, or I might have known. Now, if we have your husband prisoner, he shall go free without ransom, because I have insulted you."

"Sir," said my mother, being suddenly taken away with sorrow, because of his gracious manner, "please to let me cry a bit."

He stood away, and seemed to know that women want no help for that. And by the way she cried he knew that they had killed her husband. Then, having