"
"forbear!" cried alleyne. "mix not god's name with these
unhallowed threats! and yet it was a coward's blow, and one to
stir the blood and loose the tongue of the most peaceful. let me
find some soothing simples and lay them on the weal to draw the
sting,"
"nay, there is but one thing that can draw the sting, and that
the future may bring to me. but, clerk, if you would see your
brother you must on, for there is a meeting to-day, and his merry
men will await him ere the shadows turn from west to east. i
pray you not to hold him back, for it would be an evil thing if
all the stout lads were there and the leader a-missing. i would
come with you, but sooth to say i am stationed here and may not
move. the path over yonder, betwixt the oak and the thorn,
should bring you out into his nether field."
alleyne lost no time in following the directions of the wild,
masterless man, whom he left among the trees where he had found
him. his heart was the heavier for the encounter, not only
because all bitterness and wrath were abhorrent to his gentle
nature, but also because it disturbed him to hear his brother
spoken of as though he were a chief of outlaws or the leader of a
party against the state. indeed, of all the things which he had
seen yet in the world to surprise him there was none more strange
than the hate which class appeared to bear to class. the talk of
laborer, woodman and villein in the inn had all pointed to the
wide-spread mutiny, and now his brother's name was spoken as
though he were the very centre of the universal discontent. in
good truth, the commons throughout the length and breadth of the
land were heart-weary of this fine game of chivalry which had
been played so long at their expense. so long as knight and
baron were a strength and a guard to the kingdom they might be
endured, but now, when all men knew that the great battles in
france had been won by english yeomen and welsh stabbers, warlike
fame, the only fame to which his class had ever aspired, appeared
to have deserted the plate-clad horsemen. the sports of the
lists had done much in days gone by to impress the minds of the
people, but the plumed and unwieldy champion was no longer an
object either of fear or of reverence to men whose fathers and
brothers had shot into the press at crecy or poitiers, and seen
the proudest chivalry in the world unable to make head against
the weapons of disciplined peasants. power had changed hands.
the protector had become the protected, and the whole fabric of
the feudal system was tottering to a fall. hence the fierce
mutterings of the lower classes and the constant discontent,
breaking out into local tumult and outrage, and culminating some
years later in the great rising of tyler. what alleyne saw and
wondered at in hampshire would have appealed equally to the
traveller in any other english county from the channel to the
marches of scotland,
he was following the track, his misgivings increasing with every
step which took him nearer to that home which he had never seen,
when of a sudden the trees began to thin and the sward to spread
out onto a broad, green lawn, where five cows lay in the sunshine
and droves of black swine wandered unchecked. a brown forest
stream swirled down the centre of this clearing, with a rude
bridge flung across it, and on the other side was a second field
sloping up to a long, low-lying wooden house, with thatched roof
and open squares for windows. alleyne gazed across at it with
flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes--for this, he knew, must be the
home of his fathers. a wreath of blue smoke floated up through a
hole in the thatch, and was the only sign of life in the place,
save a great black hound which lay sleeping chained to the door-
post. in the yellow shimmer of the autumn sunshine it lay as
peacefully and as still as he had oft pictured it to himself in
his dreams.
he was roused, however, from his pleasant reverie by the sound of
voices, and two people emerged from the forest some little way to
his right and moved across the field in the direction of the
bridge. the one was a man with yellow flowing beard and very
long hair of the same tint drooping over his shoulders; his dress
of good norwich cloth and his assured bearing marked him as a man
of position, while the sombre hue of his clothes and the absence
of all ornament contrasted with the flash and glitter which had
marked the king's retinue. by his side walked a woman, tall and
slight and dark, with lithe, graceful figure and clear-cut,
composed features. her jet-black hair was gathered back under a
light pink coif, her head poised proudly upon her neck, and her
step long and springy, like that of some wild, tireless woodland
creature. she held her left hand in front of her, covered with a
red velvet glove, and on the wri
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