traight on, and came to the place in
the hillside that was feared. And it was very beautiful, for thence
one looks out over the valley to the hills beyond, with the long
line of the sea away to the right, and to the left the valleys that
slope down to the inlet where Winchelsea stands, far off to the
eastward. There is a well which they say is haunted, though by what
I know not, save that men speak of ghostly hands that seize them as
they pass, if pass they must, at night. Hardly was there a track to
the place, though the water that comes from the rocky spring is so
wondrously pure and cold that they call the place Caldbec {9}
Hill. And there by the side of the spring was a little turf-built
hut, hardly to be known from the shelving bank against which it
leant, and to that the earl led us.

"Now," he said, "tie the horses somewhere, and we will go and speak
with the Wise Woman."

At that Relf was not pleased, as it seemed, for he did not
dismount.

"Come not if you fear her," said Wulfnoth; "bide with the horses if
you will, while I and Olaf's cousin go in. Maybe there will be a
message that he must take to his kinsman."

"I have nought to seek from the old dame," said Relf, "nor is there
aught that I fear from her. I give her venison betimes, as is
fitting. I will bide with the horses."

Wulfnoth said no more to him, and turned sharply to me. "You give
her no venison--maybe you fear her therefore!" he said in a
scornful way enough.

"I fear her no more than Relf," I answered, "but, like him, I will
not seek her without reason."

"Maybe there is reason for you to hear what she tells me," the earl
said. "I will have you come."

He seemed in no wise angry, but rather wishful that I should be
with him, and so I got off my horse and went. But it crossed my
mind that Wulfnoth the earl liked not to be alone, and suddenly I
remembered the way in which two of our Bures franklins had spoken
to each other when they would see Dame Gunnhild, Hertha's nurse. It
was just in this same wise.

There was a blue reek of oak-wood smoke across the doorway of the
hut, and at first the tears came into my eyes with its biting, and
I could see nothing as the earl drew me inside. We had to stoop low
as we crossed the threshold, and then the air was clearer at the
back of the hut, which was far larger than one would think, seeing
that its front did but cover the mouth of a cave that was in the
sandstone rock. I heard the water of th