replied, hurriedly admitting him, and bolting the door
again, "why have you come now, risking your dear life to gain news of
us? Know you not that this house has been watched for more than six
months, so eager are the sheriff and the justice to capture and hang
you? I would have come to you in the forest, or sent you word of our
welfare. I fear--oh, how I fear!--lest your coming be known!"

The Old Woman's Treachery

"Now that I am here, let us make merry," quoth William. "No man has
seen me enter, and I would fain enjoy my short stay with you and my
children, for I must be back in the forest by prime to-morrow. Can you
not give a hungry outlaw food and drink?"

Then Dame Alice bustled about and prepared the best she had for her
husband; and when all was ready a very happy little family sat down to
the meal, husband and wife talking cheerily together, while the
children watched in wondering silence the father who had been away so
long and came to them so seldom.

There was one inmate of the house who saw in William's return a means
of making shameful profit. She was an old bedridden woman, apparently
paralysed, whom he had rescued from utter poverty seven years before.
During all that time she had lain on a bed near the fire, had shared
all the life of the family, and had never once moved from her couch.
Now, while husband and wife talked together and the darkness deepened
in the room, this old impostor slipped from her bed and glided
stealthily out of the house.

News Brought to the Sheriff

It happened that the king's assize was being held just then in
Carlisle, and the sheriff and his staunch ally the justice were
sitting together in the Justice Hall. Thither this treacherous old
woman hurried with all speed and pushed into the hall, forcing her way
through the crowd till she came near the sheriff. "Ha! what would you,
good woman?" asked he, surprised. "Sir, I bring tidings of great
value." "Tell your tidings, and I shall see if they be of value or no.
If they are I will reward you handsomely." "Sir, this night William of
Cloudeslee has come into Carlisle, and is even now in his wife's
house. He is all alone, and you can take him easily. Now what will you
pay me, for I am sure this news is much to you?" "You say truth, good
woman. That bold outlaw is the worst of all who kill the king's deer
in his forest of Englewood, and if I could but catch him I should be
well content. Dame, you shall not go without a