"

"forbear!" cried alleyne. "mix not god's name with these

unhallowed threats! and yet it was a coward's blow, and one to

stir the blood and loose the tongue of the most peaceful. let me

find some soothing simples and lay them on the weal to draw the

sting,"

"nay, there is but one thing that can draw the sting, and that

the future may bring to me. but, clerk, if you would see your

brother you must on, for there is a meeting to-day, and his merry

men will await him ere the shadows turn from west to east. i

pray you not to hold him back, for it would be an evil thing if

all the stout lads were there and the leader a-missing. i would

come with you, but sooth to say i am stationed here and may not

move. the path over yonder, betwixt the oak and the thorn,

should bring you out into his nether field."

alleyne lost no time in following the directions of the wild,

masterless man, whom he left among the trees where he had found

him. his heart was the heavier for the encounter, not only

because all bitterness and wrath were abhorrent to his gentle

nature, but also because it disturbed him to hear his brother

spoken of as though he were a chief of outlaws or the leader of a

party against the state. indeed, of all the things which he had

seen yet in the world to surprise him there was none more strange

than the hate which class appeared to bear to class. the talk of

laborer, woodman and villein in the inn had all pointed to the

wide-spread mutiny, and now his brother's name was spoken as

though he were the very centre of the universal discontent. in

good truth, the commons throughout the length and breadth of the

land were heart-weary of this fine game of chivalry which had

been played so long at their expense. so long as knight and

baron were a strength and a guard to the kingdom they might be

endured, but now, when all men knew that the great battles in

france had been won by english yeomen and welsh stabbers, warlike

fame, the only fame to which his class had ever aspired, appeared

to have deserted the plate-clad horsemen. the sports of the

lists had done much in days gone by to impress the minds of the

people, but the plumed and unwieldy champion was no longer an

object either of fear or of reverence to men whose fathers and

brothers had shot into the press at crecy or poitiers, and seen

the proudest chivalry in the world unable to make head against

the weapons of disciplined peasants. power had changed hands.

the protector had become the protected, and the whole fabric of

the feudal system was tottering to a fall. hence the fierce

mutterings of the lower classes and the constant discontent,

breaking out into local tumult and outrage, and culminating some

years later in the great rising of tyler. what alleyne saw and

wondered at in hampshire would have appealed equally to the

traveller in any other english county from the channel to the

marches of scotland,

he was following the track, his misgivings increasing with every

step which took him nearer to that home which he had never seen,

when of a sudden the trees began to thin and the sward to spread

out onto a broad, green lawn, where five cows lay in the sunshine

and droves of black swine wandered unchecked. a brown forest

stream swirled down the centre of this clearing, with a rude

bridge flung across it, and on the other side was a second field

sloping up to a long, low-lying wooden house, with thatched roof

and open squares for windows. alleyne gazed across at it with

flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes--for this, he knew, must be the

home of his fathers. a wreath of blue smoke floated up through a

hole in the thatch, and was the only sign of life in the place,

save a great black hound which lay sleeping chained to the door-

post. in the yellow shimmer of the autumn sunshine it lay as

peacefully and as still as he had oft pictured it to himself in

his dreams.

he was roused, however, from his pleasant reverie by the sound of

voices, and two people emerged from the forest some little way to

his right and moved across the field in the direction of the

bridge. the one was a man with yellow flowing beard and very

long hair of the same tint drooping over his shoulders; his dress

of good norwich cloth and his assured bearing marked him as a man

of position, while the sombre hue of his clothes and the absence

of all ornament contrasted with the flash and glitter which had

marked the king's retinue. by his side walked a woman, tall and

slight and dark, with lithe, graceful figure and clear-cut,

composed features. her jet-black hair was gathered back under a

light pink coif, her head poised proudly upon her neck, and her

step long and springy, like that of some wild, tireless woodland

creature. she held her left hand in front of her, covered with a

red velvet glove, and on the wri