mute offer to hold the baby was
quickly comprehended; and when Isel, taking the woman and girl up the
ladder, showed them a heap of clean straw, on which two thick rough rugs
lay folded, they quite understood that their sleeping-place for the
night was to be there. Isel led the way down again, placed a bowl of
apples before the girl, laid a knife beside it, and beginning to pare
one of the apples, soon made known to her what she required. In a
similar manner she seated the woman in the chimney-corner, and put into
her hands a petticoat which she was making for Derette. Both the
strangers smiled and nodded, and went to work with a will, while Isel
set on some of the fresh water just brought, and began to prepare
supper.

"Well, this is a queer fix as ever I saw!" muttered Isel, as she cleaned
her fish ready for boiling. "It's true enough what my grandmother used
to say--you never know, when you first open your eyes of a morning, what
they'll light on afore you shut them at night. If one could talk to
these outlandish folks, there'd be more sense in it. Flemild, I wonder
if they've come across your father."

"O Mother, couldn't we ask them?"

"How, child? If I say, `Have you seen aught of an Englishman called
Manning Brown?' as like as not they'll think I'm saying, `Come and eat
this pie.'"

Flemild laughed. "That first man talks," she said.

"Ay, and he's gone with the lot. Just my luck!--always was. My father
was sure to be killed in the wars, and my husband was safe to take it
into his head to go and fight the Saracens, instead of stopping at home
like a decent fellow to help his wife and bring up his children the way
they should go. Well!--it can't be helped, I suppose."

"Why did Father go to fight the Saracens?" demanded Derette, looking up
from the baby.

"Don't you know, Derette? It is to rescue our Lord's sepulchre," said
Flemild.

"Does He want it?" replied Derette.

Flemild did not know how to answer. "It is a holy place, and ought not
to be left in the hands of wicked people."

"Are Saracens wicked people?"

"Yes, of course--as bad as Jews. They are a sort of Jews, I believe; at
any rate, they worship idols, and weave wicked spells." [Note 3.]

"Is all the world full of wicked people?"

"Pretty nigh, child!" said her mother, with a sigh. "The saints know
that well enough."

"I wonder if the saints do know," answered Derette meditatively, rocking
the baby in her arms. "I sho