to me!" and Hugh ran forward to hold Harold, that had
slidden down in the chair.

'"Hearken," said Rahere, his arm round Harold's neck. "The King--his
bishops--the knights--all the world's crazy chessboard neither mock nor
judge thee. Take that comfort with thee, Harold of England!"

'Hugh heaved the old man up and he smiled.

'"Good comfort," said Harold. "Tell me again! I have been somewhat
punished----"

'Rahere hallooed it once more into his ear as the head rolled. We heard
him sigh, and Nigel of Ely stood forth, praying aloud.

'"Out! I will have no Norman!" Harold said as clearly as I speak now,
and he refuged himself on Hugh's sound shoulder, and stretched out, and
lay all still.'

'Dead?' said Una, turning up a white face in the dusk.

'That was his good fortune. To die in the King's presence, and on the
breast of the most gentlest, truest knight of his own house. Some of us
envied him,' said Sir Richard, and fell back to take Swallow's bridle.

'Turn left here,' Puck called ahead of them from under an oak. They
ducked down a narrow path through close ash plantation.

The children hurried forward, but cutting a corner charged full breast
into the thorn-faggot that old Hobden was carrying home on his back.

'My! My!' said he. 'Have you scratted your face, Miss Una?'

'Sorry! It's all right,' said Una, rubbing her nose. 'How many rabbits
did you get to-day?'

'That's tellin's,' the old man grinned as he re-hoisted his faggot. 'I
reckon Mus' Ridley he've got rheumatism along o' lyin' in the dik to see
I didn't snap up any. Think o' that now!'

They laughed a good deal while he told them the tale.

'An' just as he crawled away I heard some one hollerin' to the hounds in
our woods,' said he. 'Didn't you hear? You must ha' been asleep
sure-ly.'

'Oh, what about the sleeper you promised to show us?' Dan cried.

''Ere he be--house an' all!' Hobden dived into the prickly heart of the
faggot and took out a dormouse's wonderfully woven nest of grass and
leaves. His blunt fingers parted it as if it had been precious lace, and
tilting it toward the last of the light he showed the little, red, furry
chap curled up inside, his tail between his eyes that were shut for
their winter sleep.

'Let's take him home. Don't breathe on him,' said Una. 'It'll make him
warm and he'll wake up and die straight off. Won't he, Hobby?'

'That's a heap better by my reckonin' than wakin' up and findin' himself
in a cage fo