A year had passed since our ill-fated venture beneath the walls of Kimberley, and ’twas such an autumn morning as makes one forget his cares and sorrows and those of a strife-torn world, and believe in the coming of a better day.

Cedric and I had promised ourselves rare sport in the woods of Grimsby. The sky overhead was of brightest blue, and the sunlight filtered sweetly through the boughs of oak and beech that now had dropped the half of their leaves to make a rustling carpet underfoot. In the treetops the birds sang lustily, making the best of the smiling time that comes before the winter’s winds and snows. Now and again a woodmouse scampered on fallen log, a hare sprang away from her form, or a moorfowl scuttled to cover in the bracken. To me there were never sweeter sights and sounds and fragrances than those of autumn woodlands; and to Cedric, the son of a Pelham forester, they were as native and joyous as the brown brook waters to the speckled trout or the green hill pastures to the Mountjoy kine.

Since my comrade and former squire had been knighted at Wenderley, after the victory over the Welsh at the Pass of the Eagles, we at Mountjoy had grown well used to think of him as Sir Cedric De La Roche, the name conferred by the Lord High Constable when he made him knight and chevalier. But a newer honor had come to him but four months past; and though ’twas well deserved and a most gracious act of our liege lord, the Lion Hearted Richard, we yet could scarce conceive of its reality.

De Lacey, the High Constable, who with the backing of all the Mountjoys and Carletons, had well served the King in the Western counties in the struggle against his usurping brother, John, after the King’s return from the German captivity, had told to him the tale of the Welsh battle and something of Cedric’s more recent services. Then he had hinted that the fee of Grimsby had been vacant, save for the royal stewards, ever since Sir James Dunwoodie and his brother had perished in the Battle at the Pass. Forthwith the King summoned secretaries to write at his bidding; and shortly a herald arrived at Castle Mountjoy with letters patent, making our Cedric the Knight of Grimsby and conferring on him in fee the lands and manor house and all the rights Dunwoodie had before.

At the royal assembly at Shrewsbury, Cedric had appeared with his due quota of six mounted men-at-arms and fifty archers; and no knight or baron in the whole array looked a better captain of his forces or held himself in more manly fashion as the King rode down the line to view us. Truly my heart swelled that day with gladness at the recognition that had come to so brave and true a man without awaiting the silvering of his hair and the bowing of his shoulders with years.

Lord Mountjoy was mightily proud of Cedric, as I well knew, and had stinted not to boast of him on occasion as a Mountjoy lad with a head as well as hands. And, however he might wish to check o’er-weening youth and confidence, my father might not gainsay that he, that had long been famous for his swordplay through all our countryside, had much ado to hold his own with foil or quarter-staff against me, now that my strength and reach did equal his, or that Cedric of the broad back and oaken thighs could lift breast-high a weight that neither of us could stir.

Now Sir Cedric De La Roche and I adventured through the Grimsby woods, afoot, clad as huntsmen and carrying only our cross-bows and poniards. For the most part, those that hunt in greenwood choose the long-bow with its cloth-yard shafts; but from a child Cedric had displayed a wondrous skill with the other weapon; it was ever his favorite; and I followed his humor. Already he had struck a fine moorfowl that ran amongst the gorse and I a hare that sat upright beneath a leafy beech, thinking himself well hidden. We talked full loud and gayly as we made our way through bush and brake or along the woodland paths, for truly it was the sunlight and the comradeship and the smell of the fallen leaves that had brought us to the forest rather than any wish for heavy game sacks. Already we had meat enough for the roasting at our noon-tide campfire; and we little cared for more.

To fare abroad on such a morn, among the gray tree trunks and by the brown woodland streams, was enough for our content. As we walked on, Cedric told tale after tale that he had from old books of ballads and chronicles wherein brave knights rode gayly through just such a land as this and had full many gallant adventures and sweet passages at arms. Almost could I see the fays and elves that he declared were dancing on the forest floor and the old, black-robed magician that held them at his thralls.

Suddenly we heard sound of hoofs, and saw approaching us along a bridle path two armed and mounted horsemen. ’Twas Lord Gilroy, who held the great domain of that name two leagues and more away, and his nephew, a hulking youth of two and twenty or thereabouts, by name Sir Philip Carrington. Both were red of face with hurry, and their horses were well lathered and breathing hard. At first sight of us Lord Gilroy called out loudly:

“Ah, good morrow, gentlemen! Well met, Mountjoy and Grimsby both. Grimsby, we have to crave thy leave to ride through thy lands in search of a murdering villain that hath escaped us at Gilroy.”

“A murderer, sayst thou?” answered Cedric, “whom hath he slain?”

“’Tis Simon, my dogmaster. He lies at the point of death, or is dead for aught I know by this time, his skull near crushed with a cudgel. ’Twas my thrall, Egbert, a surly fellow well deserving of the hangman’s noose, that thus assaulted him. It seems the dogmaster had found him sore abusing one o’ the best of our hounds, and had rated him soundly, threatening a report to me of his actions. I saw but the end of the matter and that from a distance, and with Philip here have ridden hard after him. The varlet made at once for the woods and has thus far escaped us; but we will run him to earth, if it take the whole of Gilroy.

“A surly fellow indeed!” exclaimed Sir Cedric. “’Tis well that he be apprehended quickly, else he’ll join some outlaw band, and bid us all defiance. Thou may’st ride through my lands at will for his capture—or we may chance upon him in the wood. How may we know him?”

Lord Gilroy smiled, but in a hard, grim way he hath that is more menacing than any frown.

“’Tis easy knowing him. He wears an iron collar, like all my thralls, bearing his own name and mine in graven letters. It makes the hunting of them far easier when they have done some violence, or if they attempt to fly from my lands. But give you good day, messieurs! We must fare on. If so be you get sight of him, a cross-bow quarrel would not be amiss if he stop not on order. And if you take and send him to me, I will be much beholden. Our thralls must be kept well in leash, e’en if that leash be on occasion a hangman’s knot. Come Philip, ride to the left, I pray thee, while I follow this path through yonder thicket.”

Cedric and I walked on, talking of this bloody mischief, and of the chances of the thrall’s recapture. Somehow the brightness had gone from the sun glints, and the woodland seemed no longer a forest enchanted where nymphs and elves might dance away from hollowed tree or the gray-haired wizard, Merwin, be seen upon a mossy rock, summoning by magic spells a troop of Arthur’s chivalry.

“’Tis true this fellow must be taken,” said Cedric, sadly, “for such as he make up the outlaw bands that now and again give trouble sore to honest men. But I know not for the life of me why men that are born and die upon this green earth like any others, and that have as good a wish to live unhampered as you and I, should wear upon their necks collars of iron that mark them forever as slaves and bondmen. I have little wonder that such at times break forth with violence. Nay! I have the more that ever they remain quiet like oxen in a paddock awaiting the plowman’s yoke.”

Cedric had stopped short in the path and was facing me. Upon his broad and comely face was the same stern look he had worn that day he withstood my father in the matter of the churls at De Lancey Manor.

“Why, God ha’ mercy, Cedric!” I protested, “I see no need for all this heat. These thralls have never known other condition; and ’tis like they live the more in comfort for a master’s guidance.”

Cedric’s eyes blazed at this, and he spoke full loudly:

“Look thee now, Sir Richard! Hast ever asked of thrall whether or not he would have his freedom if he might? If ever thou dost, thou’lt find that there’s never a villein or thrall in England but would prefer himself as master to the kindest and best of lords that ever lived.”

“How know’st thou that?” I questioned, sharply, being myself somewhat kindled by the heat with which he spoke.

“Hark thee, Sir Richard! Thou hast on Mountjoy lands no thralls, for that thy grandfather made freemen of them all. But when I came to Grimsby there were here a dozen or more that wore the iron collar and might not leave the land. I had not been here a fortnight ere I loosed the collars from their necks, and bade them go or stay as pleased them for that now they were free men. Some were youths like ourselves; some strong men of middle life and others old and white-haired; but every one of them fell down before me and wept for very joy that they and their children after them should be free. Forsooth, I liked it not that men with sons older than me should pay me homage as I were a heathen Caliph on his throne. ’Tis nearly four months since; and not one of them has left the lands of Grimsby and every one would fight for me ’gainst any man on earth. Had’st thou seen their faces on that day I threw their collars to the smith to beat into bush-cutting hooks, thou’d never question more whether men would choose to be men rather than cattle.”

“Ah well!” I answered, “mayhap it is as thou sayest. Some of the best men under the Mountjoy banner are sons of those my grandfather loosed from bondage. But this is a question too great for our settlement, and this too fair a day for argument. What if we make our fire and dress this meat for dinner? Verily, I am already sharp set with this autumn air.”

Just then we spied before us, on a little rise in the woodland, a hunting lodge that had been built by the Dunwoodies for their pleasuring when they and their friends hunted in the forest. Cedric remembered that he had the key to the great lock on the door among those that hung at his girdle; and we advanced to enter and examine the place, I, for one, being glad enough of any happening that should cause us to forget the matters of which we had been talking. Soon we were inside the lodge, and found it clean and comfortable enough, it being furnished forth with a table and benches of logs, split and hewn, and a good broad fireplace with spits whereon to hang the roasting.

“Ah!” cried Cedric in a voice far other than his last speaking, “what say’st thou? Shall we not roast our meat here rather than among the leaves in the wood, where a fire in this dry time may go beyond our holding?”

“Surely,” I answered, “’twill be better far to-day. Come, I’ll flay and dress the hare while thou makest ready the fire. Thou’rt ever skillful at the kindling.”

So we set gayly to work; and in half an hour had our meat before us on the table. Some bread and cheese from our pouches that we toasted o’er the embers made with it a feast fit for any king on a woodland holiday. Our content with the world returned, and we sang a lusty ballad over the well-picked bones. Then, being something thirsty, Cedric started up to see if the lodge contained a pitcher with which he might fetch clear water from the stream near by. Meanwhile my eye had been caught by an old and somewhat rusted broadsword that hung on pegs over the fireplace. I reached it down at once, and, testing it with a few passes and upward strokes, found it a good blade and true; and wondered much that it should have been left in this place as something without worth. Then I saw on a bench in a darkened corner a small anvil and some armorer’s tools, and bethought me that the lodge might have been used at need for repairing arms when the Grimsby men were called to war.

For a moment I had not noted Cedric’s movements; but now at a sudden word from him I wheeled about and saw him crouching at the door of an inner room of the lodge and gazing into the darkness beyond as a hound that hath run the fox to earth: I crouched beside him and looked also. The room beyond, it seems, had been used in the Dunwoodies’ time for the receiving and dressing of meat and drink and such like offices. There was a small square window, now nearly closed by its plank shutter, but admitting at the side a narrow beam of light. For a time my eyes could make out naught; but after a little I saw, beneath a bench or table in the farthest corner, first two glistening eyes, then, dimly, the form of a man.

Cedric took down his cross-bow and laid a bolt in groove.

“Come forth from there, my man,” he shouted, “we have thee fairly caught.”

No answer came, and for a moment I doubted if we had seen aright. Then Cedric called out again:

“Come forth, I tell thee. Else I’ll fairly send a quarrel through thee.”

There came a low groan from the darkness, and words that seemed made with labor:

“Strike then. I care not.”

“What say’st thou?” called Cedric, “seest thou not I can strike thee with bolt fairly in face?”

“Strike then. ’Tis better so.”

Cedric turned to me with blank amaze upon his face.

“Heard thou ever the like? The man defies us to the death.” Then, quickly thrusting his bow into my hands:

“Hold this against mischance. There’s more to this than we know. I will fetch this fellow forth.”

“Hold Cedric,” I cried, “beware lest he stab thee.”

But my comrade had already advanced into the darkened room. He sprang beneath the table, like a boar-hound on his prey, and in an instant emerged at deathly grips with a man as broad and heavy as himself who fought with tooth and nail and heel and with the fierceness of a cornered wolf. E’en in that moment I noted the iron collar on his neck, and knew we had to do with Egbert, the Gilroy thrall.

Round and round they whirled in desperate wrestling, the while I tried in vain to be of help. In a moment they were out of the room where the villein had lain hidden and fighting full madly in the lodge, the thrall striving to throw his captor from him and make his way out the door and into the woods beyond.

Finding this impossible, he made a mighty effort, and lifted Cedric fairly from his feet, and flung him on his side upon the floor. For an instant it seemed he would win away unless I drove a quarrel through him; but Cedric twisted instantly and rolled the other on his back. Then in a flash he had pinned him down and had his knee on his breast.

“Now yield thee,” Cedric panted. “Thou seest I can slay thee if I will.”

“Slay me then,” gasped the other. “’Tis better than Lord Gilroy’s branding iron or hanging noose.”

“Ah then, thou’rt Egbert that murdered the dogmaster?”

“No murderer am I; but that will serve me not. Lord Gilroy will have me flayed alive with ne’er a chance to tell my tale.”

For a moment Cedric gazed into the bloodshot eyes beneath him. Then he questioned, slowly:

“Hark thee, my man. If I let thee up, wilt thou sit quiet and tell to us thy tale of this day’s doings?”

“Aye,” replied the thrall, “though to me ’tis all one. Thou’rt a knight and landlord, and wilt have no ear for the words of a thrall that wears the iron collar and is hunted by his master like a sheep-killing hound.”

“Of that we shall see,” replied Cedric, and, springing up, he released his prisoner and pointed to one of the benches that he might sit before us. “Now tell us,” he commanded, “why thou did’st beat the dogmaster till he lies near to death.”

Egbert, the thrall, took seat as he was bidden, loosed the garment that had tightened about his throat in the struggle and began:

“Simon, the dogmaster, had ever a grudge toward me,—for what I know not. And when I went to him three days ago to say that one huge hound of his pack had come a roaring at me as I worked in the field, and forced me to climb on a hay rick to ’scape his jaws, he only laughed and said that thrall-meat would be cheaper far for such a valued beast than beef or mutton. This morn, at nine o’ the clock, I crossed the hay field at the back of the kennels, and out leaped this same hound with frightful growls and roars and widely opened jaws as if he would devour me forthwith. No tree or hay-rick was at hand that I could climb; and I seized me a stone the size of my right fist, and with it felled the beast so that he lay still enough upon the grass. This was no sooner done than I heard behind me the running feet of Simon, the dogmaster. He had his dog-whip in his hand; and when he came in reach, he struck at me with all his might. The lash curled about my face, and made the weals you still may plainly see. Such despite was more than I could bear. I seized the whip from his hand, and although I knew full well it meant the branding iron or the gallows, I struck him thrice o’er the head with the loaded butt he keeps for the savage and unruly ones among his pack. Simon fell down in a heap. And then I saw Lord Gilroy riding toward me from a hilltop a furlong off, and made for the woods where his horse could not follow. They hunted me all morning, but I would have won away had’st thou not found me.”

When the thrall had ceased speaking it was very still in the lodge. Cedric looked at me with a painful question in his eyes. What my own looks answered I know not save from his words that quickly followed.

“Egbert,” he cried, “thy act may have been lawless; but we will not judge thee; and thou shalt not be sent back to the lash or the branding iron by act of ours. Neither shalt thou longer wear that badge of slavery about thy neck. Here’s that which will sever it.”

Striding to the darkened corner he took from among the armorer’s tools a stout, long-bladed file; then, springing back to Egbert’s side, seized the iron ring with one hand and set to work upon it with lusty strokes. Soon the band was half cut through; then Cedric dropped the file, and, taking the collar in both his sinewy hands, gave a mighty twist, broke it apart utterly and flung it as an accursed thing into the blackness beneath the armorer bench.

Next he took his cross-bow from the table and thrust it into Egbert’s hands.

“Take this for thy safer journeying,” he cried, “thou’lt need to travel fast and far for some few days. Then thou may’st take service under some true lord as a plowman or a soldier as thou wilt. From this day forth thou art a freeman.”

Egbert gazed at Cedric with tears streaming down his face. Then he fell on his knees before him; but my comrade raised him almost roughly.

“Up with thee, Egbert! Thou’rt a freeman now, and should do utter homage to none but God. And there’s work to do if thou wilt keep thy freedom. Thou must be far away from Gilroy before another morn.”

Egbert, among his sobs of joy, could say no word. I found in my pouch a little purse of gold and gave it him.

“Thou’lt need to buy thy food and lodging as a traveler,” I said, “and not be taken as a prowling varlet. Look to it now.”

Then he that had been our prisoner found voice at last and began to murmur broken words of thanks and to encumber his new found liberty with oaths of lifelong fealty to ourselves. But Cedric again checked him with uplifted hand.

“Hark!” he whispered, “what was that sound?”

For a moment all three of us stood silent and breathless, listening to the wind in the branches without and the faint snapping of coals on the hearth. Then came the noise again,—a long drawn, baying howl of a hound on a scent.

“Some of our neighbors hunt the deer,” I said.

“Nay,” answered Cedric quickly, “’tis no deer-hound. ’Tis a far deeper note.”

Meanwhile the face of Egbert had turned an ashen gray, and now his limbs shook with very terror.

“’Tis the bloodhounds of Gilroy,” he gasped. “My lord ever keeps two or three for just such use as this. They follow on my track.”

Then from a window we saw, a furlong off in the open wood, two huge brown hounds that ran with noses close to earth and upon a path that led straight toward the lodge.

Cedric seized his cross-bow again from Egbert’s hands.

“Get thee back within,” he commanded, “I will soon stop the coursing of these blood beasts.”

Egbert leaped through the door again to the inner room; and Cedric, throwing wide the shutter, was taking aim at the foremost of the hounds when I cried out from behind him:

“Hold! Hold! It is too late. There come the horsemen.”

From another point in the wood, not far from where the dogs had emerged, there were now riding toward us half a dozen mounted men. Cedric withdrew his weapon; and we gazed upon them in utter dismay. Lord Gilroy and Sir Philip Carrington were in the lead, and after them came three or four stout foresters and last of all, upon an ambling palfrey, none other than Simon, the dogmaster, with his head bound round and round with a great white cloth.

Cedric put away his bow, and, unbarring the door of the lodge, stood on the step without, spurning away the hounds that sought to enter.

“Good morrow, gentlemen!” he called, full jovially.

“Good morrow, gentlemen both,” answered Lord Gilroy with a most wicked laugh.

“Your hunting does not prosper,” said Cedric, paying no heed to the affront conveyed in Gilroy’s sneering words.

“How not?”

“Why, it would seem that your hounds have picked up our trail to the lodge here in place of that of their proper quarry, as the best of dogs will do at times.”

“Aye,” answered Lord Gilroy, still with the evil smile on his face. “The best of dogs and men do err at times. And yet, ’tis passing strange they are so set upon it. See! They course about and about thy little lodge and will not leave it.”

Cedric cast a careless glance at the hounds. Then he said:

“Come messieurs, can ye not alight for a moment and rest within? I cannot offer meat and drink for here we have none; but you may sit upon a bench by a fire while your men aid the hounds at finding the track again.”

Lord Gilroy threw his bridle rein to one of the foresters, leaped down from his horse, and strode toward the door; and his nephew did likewise. Simon and the others withdrew to a little distance and dismounted by the brook where they called the hounds to them.

When our most unwelcome guests were within the lodge, Cedric made haste to place for them the benches before the fireplace and again lamented that the place afforded nothing of refreshment. I made such talk as I might with both Lord Gilroy and Sir Philip, asking them of the tourney at Winchester where they had lately ridden, the deer on Gilroy lands and other like matters of no import.

Gilroy’s keen gray eyes roved ever about the lodge; and after one or two courteous replies to my questions, he asked of Cedric:

“Art sure, Grimsby, that that inner room contains no cask or wine-skin? ’Twould seem else that thy lodge is but meagerly furnished.”

“Aye, ’tis so,” answered Cedric at once.

Again our guest glanced keenly at Sir Cedric, while I breathed shortly indeed. But he said no more; and now I made diversion by asking Sir Philip if ’twas true that the Carringtons are Welsh descended. I knew full well ’twas not; and was hugely pleased when he denied it hotly and went on at greatest length to prove his family of pure Norman blood by reciting all the quarterings on the Carrington shield and their origins in the days before the Conquest.

At last Lord Gilroy stood erect and said, to my great and joyful relief:

“Welladay! We must fare on, if ever we are to take that runagate. The sunbeams already slope far to westward; and ’twill soon be—”

But there his words were of a sudden checked; and he stood staring at a point on the floor beneath the bench, three yards away. There, where half an hour before all had been deepest shadow, the sloping beam of the afternoon sun now rested, and brought to clear and certain view the iron collar.

With an oath he sprang forward and seized it. Holding it up before us, he read in a loud voice the graven words:

“Egbert, Thrall of William, Lord of Gilroy.”

Cedric stood facing him; and none of us spoke any word. Then Gilroy flung the collar on the floor and burst forth:

“Ah then! ’Tis even as I thought. One churl will help another in any strait.”

At this insult to my comrade, my hand flew to where my good sword should have been; and I ground my teeth to find it not. But Gilroy paid no heed to me. Instantly he sprang forward toward the inner door.

“We’ll see what lies within,” he shouted.

But Cedric De La Roche was quicker yet. He leaped before the door, and with a mighty push sent Lord Gilroy half across the room. Then both Gilroy and Carrington drew swords and rushed upon us. By this time I had gathered my wits, and recalling the goodly weapon at my very back, had turned and seized the rusted broadsword from above the fireplace. I was but just in time to receive the attack of both of them at once; for Cedric stooped to reach his cross-bow which rested against the wall, ready drawn and with the bolt he had meant for the hound still in groove. For a moment I withstood the double attack; then Sir Philip only was before me. He fought fiercely enough, forsooth, but in a most lubberly fashion. Half a dozen strokes and I caught his weapon with a twist I had long practiced and sent it clattering across the floor. Then with loud menaces of running him through the body, I drove him before me to the wall where I made him stand with hands above his head. Glancing sidewise, I now beheld the Lord of Gilroy in the same pitiful plight. His weapon also lay on the floor; and Cedric stood before him with cross-bow leveled at his heart.

“Wilt thou slay us then,” growled Gilroy, “in unseemly brawl over this runagate?”

“Nay,” answered Cedric sweetly, “but ye are our prisoners, duly taken. If we grant your lives and arms, you shall give us knightly word to retire from the lands of Grimsby, and give o’er this bloody hunting you were bent upon.”

“That word we give,” said Gilroy, shortly.

We instantly lowered our weapons, and, stooping, lifted the swords from the floor and returned them to their owners. Simon, the dogmaster, opened the door and thrust in his bandaged head wherein one eye was purple and swollen with a blow it had received from the whip butt. Behind him stood two of the foresters.

“Return thou, till I call thee,” shouted Gilroy furiously.

When they had retired once more to the brookside, our late antagonists turned again to leave the lodge. At the door Lord Gilroy paused and spake again, slowly and as one that fully weighs his words.

“Our word is given to leave the lands of Grimsby and thus to allow this thrall to escape. But no promise have we given as to aught else. Mayhap the King will listen when I send him word at Winchester how his vassal so newly of the fee of Grimsby is bearing himself. Mayhap it will not seem to him quite fitting that one who holds his lands in fee should with deceit and with violence shelter misdoing churls from their lawful masters.”

I caught my breath in dismay. Such a threat I knew the crafty Gilroy quite capable of carrying out. For myself I had little concern: the Mountjoys were too strong in the Western country and too valuable to the King’s cause for any such matter to bring down upon us any serious menace. But Cedric was a yeoman born; and many there were to think with spite and envy of his rise to knightly dignity.

Sir Philip now burst forth with a cackling laugh—the first sound that had come from him since I had him at the wall with his hands o’er his head.

“Ha, Grimsby!” he jibed, “thou’rt not so great a victor as it seemed. Mayhap the fee of Grimsby will soon be vacant once more.”

Then Cedric spoke again, his words being pronounced with the same slow heedfulness with which the Lord of Gilroy had uttered his threat a moment since.

“’Tis true, my lord, that naught prevents thee from sending or carrying this tale to the King. ’Tis also true—and this mayhap thou hast forgotten—that naught prevents me, in the event of thy wishing to carry this quarrel further, from taking to the King the full account (well known to me though thou hast thought it hidden) of thy doings and those of the Carringtons during the weeks that followed the King’s return to England, and while his traitorous brother, Prince John, with the aid of certain gentlemen who might have been more loyally employed, strove to keep him from his throne, and even, so ’tis said, to deprive him of life.”

Before the half of this had been spoken the face of Lord Gilroy had grown pale as death, and he seemed to shrink a full handsbreadth in stature. His nephew gazed from one to the other of us with whitened cheeks and foolish, open mouth. As soon as Cedric had finished, Lord Gilroy began in a tone far different from any he had used that day:

“Nay, nay, Grimsby and Mountjoy both! Why should we make of this trifling despite o’er a runagate thrall such a matter of bitter menacing? In truth, ’twere well should we all forget this day of petty quarreling and live in neighborly peace henceforth.”

“Nothing would better please me,” quoth Sir Cedric in reply.

“And thou, Mountjoy?” pursued Lord Gilroy, “what sayest thou?”

“With all my heart,” I replied.

Lord Gilroy seemed about to offer his hand in token of our reconciliation; but mayhap something in our faces stayed him. With a hurried bow he turned once more to the door of the lodge. After him went Sir Philip, reminding me in his shrunken confidence of a rain-drenched chanticleer. At the brookside, they climbed sullenly upon their horses’ backs, and without a word to their followers, spurred away through the forest.

An hour later, Egbert, the freeman, astride a good horse from the Grimsby stables, with cross-bow in hand and gold in pouch, was riding through the twilight on the road to Shrewsbury.