SERVICES AND PERILS REWARDED. 281

‘I grieve, my Lord knows,’ continued Louis, ‘ that
our feelings of affection cannot be cemented on all
points; but I cannot bend the obstinacy of my
barons; and therefore I perceive plainly that you
will never recover your rights.’

‘Nay, the future is with God and his saints,’
said Henry; who, pacific as he was, by no means
relished the idea of the Plantagenets being per-
petually excluded from their inheritance. ‘ Mean-
while, cousin, there is peace between us, and let
not the feast flag.’

‘Henry,’ said Louis, pausing, as he approached a
painful subject, ‘it grieves me sore to think that, of
all the English who landed with me at Damietta,
few, indeed, escaped the carnage of Mansourah.
Nevertheless, I have brought home with me two
English squires, who are anxious to return to their
own country, and whom I would fain recommend
to your gracious protection.’

‘Cousin, said Henry, responding with readiness
and sympathy, ‘for your sake I will both protect and
honour them.’

Walter Espec and Guy Muschamp were imme-
diately summoned, and, marching up the great hall
between the tables, approached the two kings and
bent their knees. _

‘Both of them,’ explained Louis, mildly, ‘ have
rendered good services, and encountered great perils,
and undergone great sufferings for the cross. One
saved my brother, the Count of Poictiers, from
captivity; and the other saved my kinswoman,
Adeline de Brienne, from still worse evils.” And