kish bow, and the noise of the
chase was loud behind them. Once again twanged the bow-string, but
this time the arrow fell short, and the woodland man, turning himself
about as well as he might, shook his clenched fist at the chase, crying
out in a voice broken by the gallop: "Ha, thieves! I am Roger of the
Rope-walk, I go to twist a rope for the necks of you!"

Then he spake to Ralph: "They are turning back: they are beaten, and
withal they love not the open road: yet slacken not yet, young knight,
unless thou lovest thine horse more than thy life; for they will follow
on through the thicket on the way-side to see whether thou wert born a
fool and hast learned nothing later."

"Yea," said Ralph, "and now I deem thou wilt tell me that to the Burg I
needs must."

"Yea, forsooth," said the carle, "nor shall we be long, riding thus,
ere we come to the Burg Gate."

"Yea, or even slower," said Ralph, drawing rein somewhat, "for now I
deem the chase done: and after all is said, I have no will to slay
Falcon, who is one of my friends, as thou perchance mayest come to be
another."

Thereafter he went a hand-gallop till the wood began to thin, and there
were fields of tillage about the highway; and presently Roger said:
"Thou mayst breathe thy nag now, and ride single, for we are amidst
friends; not even a score of the Dry Tree dare ride so nigh the Burg
save by night and cloud."

So Ralph stayed his horse, and he and Roger lighted down, and Ralph
looked about him and saw a stone tower builded on a little knoll amidst
a wheatfield, and below it some simple houses thatched with straw;
there were folk moreover working, or coming and going about the fields,
who took little heed of the two when they saw them standing quiet by
the horse's head; but each and all of these folk, so far as could be
seen, had some weapon.

Then said Ralph: "Good fellow, is this the Burg of the Four Friths?"
The carle laughed, and said: "Simple is the question, Sir Knight:
yonder is a watch-tower of the Burg, whereunder husbandmen can live,
because there be men-at-arms therein. And all round the outskirts of
the Frank of the Burg are there such-like towers to the number of
twenty-seven. For that, say folk, was the tale of the winters of the
Fair Lady who erewhile began the building of the Burg, when she was
first wedded to the Forest Lord, who before that building had dwelt, he
and his fathers, in thatched halls of timber here and there a