ight and to left for some ford.
Where the path ran down a great stone had been fixed in the centre of
the brook, but it was too far from the bank for her aged and uncertain
feet. Twice she thrust forward at it, and twice she drew back, until at
last, giving up in despair, she sat herself down by the brink and
wrung her hands wearily. There she still sat when Alleyne reached the
crossing.

"Come, mother," quoth he, "it is not so very perilous a passage."

"Alas! good youth," she answered, "I have a humor in the eyes, and
though I can see that there is a stone there I can by no means be sure
as to where it lies."

"That is easily amended," said he cheerily, and picking her lightly up,
for she was much worn with time, he passed across with her. He could
not but observe, however, that as he placed her down her knees seemed to
fail her, and she could scarcely prop herself up with her staff.

"You are weak, mother," said he. "Hast journeyed far, I wot."

"From Wiltshire, friend," said she, in a quavering voice; "three days
have I been on the road. I go to my son, who is one of the King's
regarders at Brockenhurst. He has ever said that he would care for me in
mine old age."

"And rightly too, mother, since you cared for him in his youth. But when
have you broken fast?"

"At Lyndenhurst; but alas! my money is at an end, and I could but get a
dish of bran-porridge from the nunnery. Yet I trust that I may be able
to reach Brockenhurst to-night, where I may have all that heart can
desire; for oh! sir, but my son is a fine man, with a kindly heart of
his own, and it is as good as food to me to think that he should have a
doublet of Lincoln green to his back and be the King's own paid man."

"It is a long road yet to Brockenhurst," said Alleyne; "but here is such
bread and cheese as I have left, and here, too, is a penny which may
help you to supper. May God be with you!"

"May God be with you, young man!" she cried. "May He make your heart as
glad as you have made mine!" She turned away, still mumbling blessings,
and Alleyne saw her short figure and her long shadow stumbling slowly up
the slope.

He was moving away himself, when his eyes lit upon a strange sight, and
one which sent a tingling through his skin. Out of the tangled scrub on
the old overgrown barrow two human faces were looking out at him; the
sinking sun glimmered full upon them, showing up every line and feature.
The one was an oldish man with a thin bea