I failed in what was my strict duty, although I disobeyed no orders that I had received, and my conscience altogether acquits me of wrong." "You may be sure, Sir Oswald, that the matter will go no further; and knowing you as I do, I feel sure that, whatever the matter was, it was not to your discredit." "So I trust, myself, my lord; but it might have cost me my head, had the king come to know it.

I will first tell you that my ransom was fixed at a crown, and that of Roger at a penny." Hotspur, who had been looking a little grave, laughed.
"Surely never before was so much bone and sinew appraised at so small a sum." "It was so put, simply that I might, with truth, avow that I was put to ransom.

However, I paid the crown and the penny, and have so discharged my obligations.
"This was how the matter came about;" and he related the whole circumstances to Sir Henry; and the manner in which the little chain, given to him by Glendower's daughter, had been the means of saving his life.
"I blame you in no way, Sir Oswald," Hotspur said cordially, when he had heard the story; "though I say not that the king would have viewed the matter in the same light.

Still, you held to the letter of your orders.

You were placed there to give warning of the approach of any hostile body, and naught was said to you as to letting any man, still less any women, depart from the place.