e not together slain of
Sir Pertolepe's foresters a round score?--"

"'Twas but nineteen!" growled Roger, frowning at Walkyn.

"So will I make of this hangman the twentieth!" said Walkyn, frowning
at Roger.

"'Tis a sweet thought," laughed the archer, "to it, lads, and slay each
other as soon as ye may, and my blessings on ye. As for us, Sir
Paladin, let us away--'tis true we together might give check to an
army, yet, minding Sir Pertolepe's nineteen foresters, 'twere wiser to
his us from Sir Pertolepe's country for the nonce: so march, tall
brother--march!"

"Ha!" snarled Walkyn, "fear ye Red Pertolepe yet, bowman? Well, we want
ye not, my lord and I, he hath a sword and I an axe--they shall suffice
us, mayhap, an Pertolepe come. So his thee hence with the hangman and
save thy rogue's skin."

"And may ye dangle in a noose yet for a prating do-nothing!" growled
Roger.

"Oho!" laughed Giles, with a flash of white teeth, "a hangman and a
serf--must I slay both?" But, ere he could draw sword, came a voice
from the shadows near by--a deep voice, clear and very sweet:

"Oh, children," said the voice, "oh, children of God, put up your
steel and pray for one whose white soul doth mount e'en now to heaven!"
and forth into the light came one clad as a white friar--a tall man and
slender, and upon his shoulder he bare a mattock that gleamed beneath
the moon. His coarse, white robe, frayed and worn, was stained with
earth and the green of grass, and was splashed, here and there, with a
darker stain; pale was he, and hollow-cheeked, but with eyes that
gleamed 'neath black brows and with chin long and purposeful. Now at
sight of him, fierce-eyed Walkyn cried aloud and flung aside his axe
and, falling on his knees, caught the friar's threadbare robe and
kissed it.

"Good brother!" he groaned, "O, gentle brother Martin, pity me!"

"What, Walkyn?" quoth the friar. "What do ye thus equipped and so far
from home?"

"Home have I none, henceforth, O my father."

"Ah! What then of thy wife, Truda--of thy little son?"

"Dead, my father. Red Pertolepe's men slew them this day within the
green. So, when I had buried them, I took my axe and left them with
God: yet shall my soul go lonely, methinks, until my time be come."

Then Friar Martin reached out his hand and laid it upon Walkyn's bowed
head: and, though the hand was hard and toil-worn, the touch of it was
ineffably gentle, and he spake with eyes upraised to heaven:

"O