"My name is Oswald Forster, and I
have the honour to be one of Lord Percy's esquires."
"Come you alone?" the earl asked.
"I came with a companion, a monk. I was in the disguise of a young
servitor of his convent. We came on foot from Roxburgh."
He then unscrewed the handle of a dagger Percy had given him, for the
purpose, and pulled out a small roll of paper, which he handed to the
earl. It contained only the following words:
"Do not intrust undue confidence in the bearer. The matters you wot of
are in good train; of them my messenger knows nothing."
"This was so writ by Sir Henry Percy," said Oswald, "in order that, if
I were detained and searched on the way, and this paper found on me, I
might not be forced, by torture, to say aught of my message."
"But this signet ring would have shown to whom you were coming."
"It was concealed in my staff, my lord, and could not have been
discovered, had not that been split open. Had it been so, I should have
admitted that Lord Percy had indeed committed the signet and the
writing to me to carry, and had bid me travel as the servitor of a monk
on his journey north; but that, more than that these were to be
delivered to you, I knew nothing.
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