for a mouse in a wheat-field. Good Saint
George, thou who didst overcome the Dragon, I pray you by that most
honorable and knightly achievement that you will be with me now! And
you also, great Saint Julian, patron of all wayfarers in distress! Two
candles shall burn before your shrine at Godalming, if you will but
bring me back my saddle-bag. What would I not give to have it back?"

"Will you give me my life?" asked the outlaw. "Promise that I go free,
and you shall have it back, if it be indeed true that my wife has taken
it."

"Nay, I cannot do that," said Nigel. "My honor would surely be
concerned, since my loss is a private one; but it would be to the public
scathe that you should go free. By Saint Paul! it would be an ungentle
deed if in order to save my own I let you loose upon the gear of a
hundred others."

"I will not ask you to let me loose," said the "Wild Man." "If you will
promise that my life be spared I will restore your bag."

"I cannot give such a promise, for it will lie with the Sheriff and
reeves of Guildford."

"Shall I have your word in my favor?"

"That I could promise you, if you will give back the bag, though I know
not how far my word may avail. But your words are vain, for you cannot
think that we will be so fond as to let you go in the hope that you
return?"

"I would not ask it," said the "Wild Man," "for I can get your bag and
yet never stir from the spot where I stand. Have I your promise upon
your honor and all that you hold dear that you will ask for grace?"

"You have."

"And that my wife shall be unharmed?"

"I promise it."

The outlaw laid back his head and uttered a long shrill cry like the
howl of a wolf. There was a silent pause, and then, clear and shrill,
there rose the same cry no great distance away in the forest. Again the
"Wild Man" called, and again his mate replied. A third time he summoned,
as the deer bells to the doe in the greenwood. Then with a rustle of
brushwood and snapping of twigs the woman was before them once more,
tall, pale, graceful, wonderful. She glanced neither at Aylward nor
Nigel, but ran to the side of her husband.

"Dear and sweet lord," she cried, "I trust they have done you no hurt. I
waited by the old ash, and my heart sank when you came not."

"I have been taken at last, wife."

"Oh, cursed, cursed day! Let him go, kind, gentle sirs; do not take him
from me!"

"They will speak for me at Guildford," said the "Wild Man." "They h