308 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND. [vI.

 

the remotest idea where to find the lost sheep, and in
the second place, if he had been able to do so, he
was the very last shepherd with whom it would have
returned.

‘So you may suppose that things went on rather
uncomfortably at the castle, and as a natural conse-
quence, I became very cross and morose. To make
a diversion, therefore, I determined upon undertaking
an expedition against a certain neighbour of mine
who possessed a castle some fifteen or twenty miles
distant from my own. To say the truth, he had not
given me any very grave cause of offence. He had
indeed flogged one of my vassals whom his people
had caught in the act of robbing a hen-roost, but as
barons usually stood by each other in such matters,
and I should undoubtedly have hanged the fellow in
similar case, there was not much to complain of. But
when one is looking for an excuse, one can always
make anything serve for one, and this did as well as
a better.

‘I pretended to be very indignant at the rough
usage which my worthy retainer had received; and
without any preliminary message of defiance, I
gathered together my men-at-arms, summoned my
vassals, and rode off at the head of over a hundred
and fifty of the greatest rascals you could have found
in this or any other country. They all hada keen
eye for plunder, no scruples of any kind to interfere
with their due execution of the work before them,
and no merit that I could honestly attribute to them
except fidelity to their feudal chief and unflinching
courage in the hour of battle. I had wanted Sir