Adventure Magazine Cover, August 18, 1921 — page 60: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

o4 mother died. It was hastily swept and put in order. Margaret surveyed it in dismay; nor did the wave of homesickness that engulfed her abate at the sight of the two trembling crones summoned from the village to at- tend her. The dirt and damp everywhere offended her dainty soul far more than fear could daunt her. But a harder ordeal awaited her. She was sent for at nightfall to dine in the great hall. She. found her place beside Umfra- ville on a raised dais beneath a canopy at the upper end of the hall. At right angles to their table, but below the dais another table stood, longer and rougher, made up of trestles and sections of planking that be- tween meals were stacked against the wall. _ This stretched far down the rush-strewn, stone-flagged floor. There every other member of the household, save only the wenches and varlets that served the rest, was seated in his proper place, from the captains at the head to the stable-knaves at the foot. Though larger, dirtier, more primitive, the scene was so like what she had known at High Tower, with so many familiar faces _ among the men-at-arms, that Margaret could scarce endure it. When Umfraville began to feed bits of meat to his favorite goshawk on its perch at his shoulder, it brought back the memory of her father so vividly that her eyes filled with tears. Her father! And—Geoffrey! “Have you no lust for food, after so long a ride?” Umfraville’s bearded lips were twisted into a sardonic smile. He had little sym- pathy for sentimental weakness and a lik- ing for heavy sarcasm; yet there was the least touch of tenderness in the sneer. The fat steward, standing attentively behind the baron’s chair, felt the sarcasm but not the tenderness. Taking his cue accordingly, he smiled. The tears in the girl’s eyes pleased him. He still resented the cleaning of the bower, in which he had been forced to do his part. Bermond looked up in time to see his smile and grew hot with impotent anger. But Margaret needed no man’s aid. Roused by Umfraville’s sneer, her first feel- ing was one of shame that she should have come so near showing her grief in public. This was the ransom for her father’s liberty and her lover’s life. Well, she would pay it. Adventure If she must be Umfraville’s wife, and mis- tress of Flamford Keep, now was the time to show that she could rule it indeed, as she had ruled High Tower and every soul within its walls. Her woman’s pride rose to strengthen her. She could hold her own when the weapons were wits and tongues. The stewart’s insolent grin determined her point of attack. Before the baron could repeat his question, she answered it with her first barbed shaft. “No lust for such food as this,”’ she said sweetly. “It is ill-cooked, worse savored and vilely served. This dish—you have good plate, my lord—is coated thick with grease. The table is scarce half-scoured, the canopy above us sags with the dust upon it, the fresh rushes on the floor have been strewn upon the old, and all is thick with the dirt of your long absence. It is shameful that such a homecoming should be prepared for you, my lord, after your toils and perils in the field!’ Umfraville stared blankly. Never before had he heard a woman wax indignant over his discomfort, nor had he ever felt any dis- content with the ordering of his house. “You are in a warrior’s hall, not in a maiden’s bower,” he said with an air of bluff masculinity. “The more reason that it should be well kept,” she retorted. ‘Had you been the besieged instead of the besieger at High Tower, you would have learned the worth of food. You would not let those knaves now rising from those benches down there leave their beechen bowls half-full of good pease porridge, that should go to the reap- ers in the wheatfields, who ply their sickles as if their arms were palsied with famine. “And you suffer your steward to throw great gobbets of meat to rot and breed flies and fever on the vast kitchen-midden I saw but now from the bower window. How long is it since you held an accounting with him, my lord?” The tarnished silver chain that was his badge of office rose and fell on the steward’s agitated and ample bosom, while Umfra- ville tried to remember whether it was last Christmas or last Candlemas. He was a man of action and the open and hated these bothersome indoor details. “So long ago as that?” pursued Mar- garet, when he had made a guess. ‘Then, we must lose no time. You waste money, COmiclbook C©