air offer was not made to you."

"And," said Stephen, "so please you, brother John, hand us over our
portions, and the jewels as bequeathed to us, and we will be gone."

"Portions, quotha?" returned John. "Boy, they be not due to you till
you be come to years of discretion."

The brothers looked at one another, and Stephen said, "Nay, now,
brother, I know not how that may be, but I do know that you cannot drive
us from our father's house without maintenance, and detain what belongs
to us."

And Ambrose muttered something about "my Lord of Beaulieu."

"Look you, now," said John, "did I ever speak of driving you from home
without maintenance? Hath not Ambrose had his choice of staying here,
and Stephen of waiting till some office be found for him? As for
putting forty crowns into the hands of striplings like you, it were mere
throwing it to the robbers."

"That being so," said Ambrose turning to Stephen, "we will to Beaulieu,
and see what counsel my lord will give us."

"Yea, do, like the vipers ye are, and embroil us with my Lord of
Beaulieu," cried Maud from the fire.

"See," said John, in his more caressing fashion, "it is not well to
carry family tales to strangers, and--and--"

He was disconcerted by a laugh from the old nurse, "Ho! John
Birkenholt, thou wast ever a lad of smooth tongue, but an thou, or madam
here, think that thy brothers can be put forth from thy father's door
without their due before the good man be cold in his grave, and the
Forest not ring with it, thou art mightily out in thy reckoning!"

"Peace, thou old hag; what matter is't of thine?" began Mistress Maud,
but again came the harsh laugh.

"Matter of mine! Why, whose matter should it be but mine, that have
nursed all three of the lads, ay, and their father before them, besides
four more that lie in the graveyard at Beaulieu? Rest their sweet
souls! And I tell thee, Master John, an thou do not righteously by
these thy brothers, thou mayst back to thy parchments at Southampton,
for not a man or beast in the Forest will give thee good-day."

They all felt the old woman's authority. She was able and spirited in
her homely way, and more mistress of the house than Mrs Birkenholt
herself; and such were the terms of domestic service, that there was no
peril of losing her place. Even Maud knew that to turn her out was an
impossibility, and that she must be accepted like the loneliness, damp,
and other evils of Forest life. John h