eaded lattices were thrust
open with a hasty clang, and women's heads looked out as the iron tramp
of the hunters' feet struck fire from the stones. A few cries were
raised; one burgher called them to know their errand; they answered
nothing, but traversed the street with lightning speed, gone from sight
almost ere they were seen. A league farther on was a wooded bottom, all
dark and silent, with a brook murmuring through it under the leafy shade
of lilies and the tangle of water-plants; there Cecil checked the King
and threw himself out of saddle.

"He is not quite himself yet," he murmured, as he loosened the girths
and held back the delicate head from the perilous cold of the water to
which the horse stretched so eagerly; he thought more of Forest King
than he thought, even in that hour, of himself. He did all that was
needed with his own hands; fed him with the corn from the saddle-bags,
cooled him gently, led him to drink a cautious draught from the bubbling
little stream, then let him graze and rest under the shade of the
aromatic pines and the deep bronze leaves of the copper beeches; it
was almost dark, so heavy and thickly laced were the branches, and
exquisitely tranquil in the heart of the hilly country, in the peace of
the early day, with the rushing of the forest brook the sole sound that
was heard, and the everlasting sighing of the pine-boughs overhead.

Cecil leaned a while silently against one of the great gnarled trunks,
and Rake affected to busy himself with the mare; in his heart was a
tumult of rage, a volcano of curiosity, a pent-up storm of anxious
amaze, but he would have let Mother o' Pearl brain him with a kick of
her iron plates rather than press a single look that should seem like
doubt, or seem like insult in adversity to his fallen master.

Cecil's eyes, drooped and brooding, gazed a long half-hour down in
silence into the brook bubbling at his feet; then he lifted his head and
spoke--with a certain formality and command in his voice, as though he
gave an order on parade.

"Rake, listen, and do precisely what I bid you; neither more nor less.
The horses cannot accompany me, nor you either; I must go henceforth
where they would starve, and you would do worse. I do not take the King
into suffering, nor you into temptation."

Rake, who at the tone had fallen unconsciously in to the attitude of
"attention," giving the salute with his old military instinct, opened
his lips to speak in eager