rt true to thine."

"Bethink you again, mon ami," quoth Aylward, "that you might do much
good yonder, since there are three hundred men in the Company, and none
who has ever a word of grace for them, and yet the Virgin knows that
there was never a set of men who were in more need of it. Sickerly the
one duty may balance the other. Your brother hath done without you this
many a year, and, as I gather, he hath never walked as far as Beaulieu
to see you during all that time, so he cannot be in any great need of
you."

"Besides," said John, "the Socman of Minstead is a by-word through the
forest, from Bramshaw Hill to Holmesley Walk. He is a drunken, brawling,
perilous churl, as you may find to your cost."

"The more reason that I should strive to mend him," quoth Alleyne.
"There is no need to urge me, friends, for my own wishes would draw
me to France, and it would be a joy to me if I could go with you. But
indeed and indeed it cannot be, so here I take my leave of you, for
yonder square tower amongst the trees upon the right must surely be the
church of Minstead, and I may reach it by this path through the woods."

"Well, God be with thee, lad!" cried the archer, pressing Alleyne to his
heart. "I am quick to love, and quick to hate and 'fore God I am loth to
part."

"Would it not be well," said John, "that we should wait here, and see
what manner of greeting you have from your brother. You may prove to be
as welcome as the king's purveyor to the village dame."

"Nay, nay," he answered; "ye must not bide for me, for where I go I
stay."

"Yet it may be as well that you should know whither we go," said the
archer. "We shall now journey south through the woods until we come out
upon the Christchurch road, and so onwards, hoping to-night to reach the
castle of Sir William Montacute, Earl of Salisbury, of which Sir Nigel
Loring is constable. There we shall bide, and it is like enough that for
a month or more you may find us there, ere we are ready for our viage
back to France."

It was hard indeed for Alleyne to break away from these two new but
hearty friends, and so strong was the combat between his conscience
and his inclinations that he dared not look round, lest his resolution
should slip away from him. It was not until he was deep among the tree
trunks that he cast a glance backwards, when he found that he could
still see them through the branches on the road above him. The archer
was standing with folded arms,