th the oncoming of death, but he smiled
as he looked up at his lord.

"The Crane pecked me," he said. "He had a stout bill, if a black heart."

Ivo wept aloud, being pitiful as he was brave. He would have scoured the
country for a priest.

"Farewell, old comrade," he sobbed. "Give greeting to Odo in Paradise,
and keep a place for me by your side. I will nourish your son, as if he
had been that one of my own whom Heaven has denied me. Tarry a little,
dear heart, and the Priest of Glede will be here to shrive you."

Through the thicket there crawled a mighty figure, his yellow
hair dabbled in blood, and his breath labouring like wind in a
threshing-floor. He lay down by Jehan's side, and with a last effort
kissed him on the lips.

"Priest!" cried the dying Aelward. "What need is there of priest to help
us two English on our way to God?"

CHAPTER 3. THE WIFE OF FLANDERS

From the bed set high on a dais came eerie spasms of laughter, a harsh
cackle like fowls at feeding time.

"Is that the last of them, Anton?" said a voice.

A little serving-man with an apple-hued face bowed in reply. He bowed
with difficulty, for in his arms he held a huge grey cat, which still
mewed with the excitement of the chase. Rats had been turned loose
on the floor, and it had accounted for them to the accompaniment of a
shrill urging from the bed. Now the sport was over, and the domestics
who had crowded round the door to see it had slipped away, leaving only
Anton and the cat.

"Give Tib a full meal of offal," came the order, "and away with
yourself. Your rats are a weak breed. Get me the stout grey monsters
like Tuesday se'ennight."

The room was empty now save for two figures both wearing the habit of
the religious. Near the bed sat a man in the full black robe and hood of
the monks of Cluny. He warmed plump hands at the brazier and seemed at
ease and at home. By the door stood a different figure in the shabby
clothes of a parish priest, a curate from the kirk of St. Martin's who
had been a scandalised spectator of the rat hunt. He shuffled his feet
as if uncertain of his next step--a thin, pale man with a pinched mouth
and timid earnest eyes.

The glance from the bed fell on him "What will the fellow be at?" said
the voice testily. "He stands there like a sow about to litter, and
stares and grunts. Good e'en to you, friend. When you are wanted you
will be sent for Jesu's name, what have I done to have that howlet
glowering