nd the shelter of a cot. Just
then Walter Blunt, dressed with more than usual care, passed by on his
way to the Earl's house. He stopped for a moment and said, "Mayhaps I
will not be in until late to-night. Thou and Falworth, Gascoyne, may
fetch water to-morrow."

Then he was gone. Myles stood staring after his retreating figure with
eyes open and mouth agape, still holding the ball of sheepskin balanced
in his hand. Gascoyne burst into a helpless laugh at his blank,
stupefied face, but the next moment he laid his hand on his friend's
shoulder.

"Myles," he said, "thou wilt not make trouble, wilt thou?"

Myles made no answer. He flung down his sheepskin and sat him gloomily
down upon the side of the cot.

"I said that I would sooner die than fetch water for them," said he.

"Aye, aye," said Gascoyne; "but that was spoken in haste."

Myles said nothing, but shook his head.

But, after all, circumstances shape themselves. The next morning when he
rose up through the dark waters of sleep it was to feel some one shaking
him violently by the shoulder.

"Come!" cried Gascoyne, as Myles opened his eyes--"come, time passeth,
and we are late."

Myles, bewildered with his sudden awakening, and still fuddled with the
fumes of sleep, huddled into his doublet and hose, hardly knowing what
he was doing; tying a point here and a point there, and slipping
his feet into his shoes. Then he hurried after Gascoyne, frowzy,
half-dressed, and even yet only half-awake. It was not until he was
fairly out into the fresh air and saw Gascoyne filling the three
leathern buckets at the tank, that he fully awakened to the fact that he
was actually doing that hateful service for the bachelors which he had
protested he would sooner die than render.

The sun was just rising, gilding the crown of the donjon-keep with a
flame of ruddy light. Below, among the lesser buildings, the day was
still gray and misty. Only an occasional noise broke the silence of the
early morning: a cough from one of the rooms; the rattle of a pot or
a pan, stirred by some sleepy scullion; the clapping of a door or a
shutter, and now and then the crowing of a cock back of the long row of
stables--all sounding loud and startling in the fresh dewy stillness.

"Thou hast betrayed me," said Myles, harshly, breaking the silence at
last. "I knew not what I was doing, or else I would never have come
hither. Ne'theless, even though I be come, I will not carry the water
for