keep hung round with
hanged men ere now--and in the dungeons beneath--I have seen--God
forgive me, what I have seen! Ha! Burn, accursed walls, burn! Full many
shall rejoice in thy ruin, as I do--lorn women and fatherless
children--fair women ravished of life and honour!"

"Aye," cried Giles, "and lovely ladies brought to shame! So,
Garthlaxton--smoke!"

"And," quoth frowning Walkyn, "I would that Pertolepe's rank carcass
smoked with thee!"

"Content you, my gentle Walkyn," nodded the archer, "hell-fire shall
have him yet, and groweth ever hotter against the day--content you. So
away with melancholy, be blithe and merry as I am and the sweet-voiced
throstles yonder--the wanton rogues! Ha! by Saint Giles! See where our
youthful, god-like brother rideth, his brow as gloomy as his hair is
bright--"

"Ah," muttered Roger, "he grieveth yet for Beda the Jester--and he but
a Fool!"

"Yet a man-like fool, methinks!" quoth the archer. "But for our tall
brother now, he is changed these latter days: he groweth harsh,
methinks, and something ungentle at times." And Giles thoughtfully
touched his arm with tentative fingers.

"Why, the torment is apt to change a man," said Walkyn, grim-smiling.
"I have tried it and I know."

Now hereupon Giles fell to whistling, Walkyn to silence and Roger to
scowling; oft looking back, jealous-eyed, to where Beltane rode a black
war-horse, his mail-coif thrown back, his chin upon his breast, his
eyes gloomy and wistful; and as often as he looked, Roger sighed amain.
Whereat at last the archer cried:

"Good lack, Roger, and wherefore puff ye so? Why glower ye, man, and
snort?"

"Snort thyself!" growled Roger.

"Nay, I had rather talk."

"I had rather be silent."

"Excellent, Roger; so will I talk for thee and me. First will I show
three excellent reasons for happiness--_videlicit:_ the birds sing, I
talk, and Garthlaxton burns.--"

"I would thou did'st burn with it," growled Roger. "But here is a deed
shall live when thou and I are dust, archer!"

"Verily, good Roger, for here and now will I make a song on't for souls
unborn to sing--a good song with a lilt to trip it lightly on the
tongue, as thus:

"How Beltane burned Garthlaxton low
With lusty Giles, whose good yew bow
Sped many a caitiff rogue, I trow,
_Dixit_!"

"How!" exclaimed Roger, "here be two whole lines to thy knavish self
and but one to our master?"

"Aye," grumbled Walkyn, "and what of Roger?--wha