t I am a better knight than thou--better with
horse, sword, and lance?"

If the newcomer said "Yes," he might pass without further toll; if
not he must fight, yea, even to the death. And this our Norman
pages thought the grandest thing in chivalry.

As yet they had kept from such direct insult as would necessitate
an appeal to sword or lance in Wilfred's case, which, indeed, pages
could not resort to without the permission of their feudal
superiors; but how long would this last?

The promise the poor lad had given to his beloved and lost mother
had made him patient for a time; but his patience had been tried to
the uttermost.

He looked on the woods which had once echoed to his father's horn:
for miles and miles they extended in trackless mazes of underwood,
swamp, and brake; and report already credited them with being the
haunt of outlaws innumerable.

"Where were all the fugitives from Aescendune?" thought our
Wilfred; "did the woods conceal them?"

Well, if so, the day might come when he would be glad to join them.

While he was thus musing, the sun rose high in the heavens, and he
heard the horns summon the hunters--he heard the loud baying of the
hounds, but he heeded not--he loathed society that day, and
satisfying his hunger with a crust of bread, obtained at the hut of
a thrall, he wandered deeper into the forest.

The day was hot, and he grew tired. He lay down at the foot of a
tree, and at length slept.

How long that slumber lasted he knew not, but he dreamt a strange
and gruesome dream. He thought his ancestors--the whole line of
them--passed before him in succession, all going into the depths of
the wood, and that as each spectral form passed it looked at him
with sorrow and pointed into the forest.

At length, in his dream, his father came and stood by him, and
pointed to the woods likewise.

Meanwhile a lurid light was rising in the woods behind him, and a
sense of imminent danger grew on the sleeper when strange outcries
arose from the wood.

He was on the border land, twixt sleeping and waking, and the
outcries were not all imaginary. There was the voice of one who
besought for mercy, and the laughter and scornful tones of those
who refused it; and these, at least, were real, for they awoke the
sleeper.

The cry which aroused young Wilfred from his sleep was uttered in a
tone of distress, which at once appealed to his manhood for aid.

And it was a familiar voice--that of his own fos