lass
have wrought upon mine and me. May God smite me if I fail to smite thee,
thou French robber, with thy wife and thy child and all that is under
thy castle roof!"

"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