uel nor any
other may need the shelter of this room. We will trust it may be
so.

"Yet I will cudgel my brains for a plan. It would be a fearful
thing to know him to be shut up here, and yet to be unable to visit
him with the necessaries of life. How poor Warbel drank when he
issued forth that night. Methinks I see him now. One would have
thought he had never tasted water before."

"But we came not to talk of all this," interrupted Julian, who had
been evincing a few signs of impatience latterly; "we came to tell
of the fair held today and tomorrow at Chadwick. Our father says we
may go thither tomorrow if we will. Warbel says they will bait a
bull, and perhaps a bear; and that there will be fighting with the
quarterstaff and shooting with cross and long bow, and many other
like spectacles. He will attend us, and we may be off with the
light of day, an we will. That is what we came to tell thee,
Edred."

Edred was boy enough to be well pleased at this news. Any variety
in the day's round was pleasing to the lads, who found life a
little monotonous, albeit pleasant enough. It was a relief, too, to
turn from grave thoughts and anxious forebodings to the
anticipation of simpler pleasures, and the boys all ran to seek
Warbel and ask him what these village fairs were like; for they had
been much interrupted during the recent wars, and only now that
peace had been for some years established did they begin to revive
and gain their old characteristics.

At break of day on the morning following, the little party started
forth on foot to walk the five miles which separated them from the
village of Chadwick. It was a pleasant enough walk through the
green forest paths before the heat of the day had come. The three
boys and Warbel headed the party, and were followed by some eight
or ten men of various degree, some bent on a day's pleasure for
themselves, others there with a view of attending upon their
master's sons.

Bertram felt that he could have dispensed with any attendance save
that of Warbel; but Sir Oliver had given his own orders. With so
powerful and jealous a neighbour within easy reach of the village,
he felt bound to be careful of his children. They were but
striplings after all, and doubtless his unscrupulous neighbour
would be delighted to hold one or more as a hostage should excuse
arise for opening hostilities of any kind. He knew well the
unscrupulous character of the man with whom he had to deal, and he