she
repaired to the little rough shed-like chamber where the two brothers
lay for the last time on their pallet bed, awake, and watching for her,
with Spring at their feet. The poor old woman stood over them, as over
the motherless nurslings whom she had tended, and she should probably
never see more, but she was a woman of shrewd sense, and perceived that
"with the new madam in the hall" it was better that they should be gone
before worse ensued.

She advised leaving their valuables sealed up in the hands of my Lord
Abbot, but they were averse to this--for they said their uncle Randall,
who had not seen them since they were little children, would not know
them without some pledge.

She shook her head. "The less you deal with Hal Randall the better,"
she said. "Come now, lads, be advised and go no farther than
Winchester, where Master Ambrose may get all the book-learning he is
ever craving for, and you, Master Stevie, may prentice yourself to some
good trade."

"Prentice!" cried Stephen, scornfully.

"Ay, ay. As good blood as thine has been prenticed," returned Joan.
"Better so than be a cut-throat sword-and-buckler fellow, ever slaying
some one else or getting thyself slain--a terror to all peaceful folk.
But thine uncle will see to that--a steady-minded lad always was he--was
Master Dick."

Consoling herself with this hope, the old woman rolled up their new
suits with some linen into two neat knapsacks; sighing over the thought
that unaccustomed fingers would deal with the shirts she had spun,
bleached, and sewn. But she had confidence in "Master Dick," and
concluded that to send his nephews to him at Winchester gave a far
better chance of their being cared for, than letting them be flouted
into ill-doing by their grudging brother and his wife.

CHAPTER TWO.

THE GRANGE OF SILKSTEDE.

"All Itchen's valley lay,
Saint Catherine's breezy side and the woodlands far away,
The huge Cathedral sleeping in venerable gloom,
The modest College tower, and the bedesmen's Norman home."

Lord Selborne.

Very early in the morning, even according to the habits of the time,
were Stephen and Ambrose Birkenholt astir. They were full of ardour to
enter on the new and unknown world beyond the Forest, and much as they
loved it, any change that kept them still to their altered life would
have been distasteful.

Nurse Joan, asking no questions, folded up their fardels on their backs,
and packed the walle