uperiors, and perhaps after all we Augustinians are
too hard upon Franciscans and friars of low degree--only we want to
get to heaven our own way, with our steady jog trot, and you go
frisking, caracolling, curvetting, gambolling along. Well, I hope
Saint Peter will let us all in at the last."

Martin was silent, out of respect to the age of the speaker.

"Thou art a modest boy; come, tell me, who was thy father?"

"An outlaw, long since dead."

"And thy mother?"

"His bride--but I know not of what parentage. There is a secret
never disclosed to me, and which I shall never learn now, only I am
assured that I was born in holy wedlock, and that a priest blessed
the union."

"Did thy mother marry again?"

"She was compelled to accept one Grimbeard, a chief amongst the
'merrie men' who succeeded my father as their leader."

"Now, my son, I know why I looked at thee--I knew thy father. Nay,
I administered the last rites of Holy Church to him. I was
travelling through the woods and following a short route to the
great abbey of Battle, when a band of the outlaws burst forth from
an ambush.

"'Art thou a priest, portly father?' they said irreverently.

"'Good lack,' said I, 'I am, but little of worldly goods have I.
Thou wilt not plunder God's ambassadors of their little all?'

"'Nay! But thou must come with us, and thy retinue must tarry here
till we bring thee back.'

"'You will not harm me?' said I, fearing for my throat. 'It is as
thou hearest a hoarse one, and often sore, but it is my only one.'

"They laughed, and one said:

"'Nay, father, we swear by Him that died that we will bring thee
safe here again ere sundown.'

"So they led me away, and anon they blindfolded me, and led my
horse. What a mercy poor Whitefoot was sure footed, and did not
stumble, for the way was parlous difficult.

"And at last they took the bandage from off mine eyes, and I saw I
was in their encampment, in the innermost recesses of a swampy
tangled wood. There, in a sort of better-most cabin, lay a young
man, dying--wounded, as I afterwards learned, in an attack upon the
Lord of Herst de Monceux.

"A goodly man of some thirty years was he, and a goodly end he
made. He told me his story, and as the lips of dying men speak the
truth, I believed him. He was the last representative of that
English family which before the Conquest owned this very island and
its adjacent woods and fields {24}. He was very like thee--he
stands bef