“Oho!” laughed Giles, with a flash of white teeth, “a hangman and a serf—­must I slay both?” But, ere he could draw sword, came a voice from the shadows near by—­a deep voice, clear and very sweet: 

“Oh, children,” said the voice, “oh, children of God, put up your steel and pray for one whose white soul doth mount e’en now to heaven!” and forth into the light came one clad as a white friar—­a tall man and slender, and upon his shoulder he bare a mattock that gleamed beneath the moon.  His coarse, white robe, frayed and worn, was stained with earth and the green of grass, and was splashed, here and there, with a darker stain; pale was he, and hollow-cheeked, but with eyes that gleamed ’neath black brows and with chin long and purposeful.  Now at sight of him, fierce-eyed Walkyn cried aloud and flung aside his axe and, falling on his knees, caught the friar’s threadbare robe and kissed it.

“Good brother!” he groaned, “O, gentle brother Martin, pity me!”

“What, Walkyn?” quoth the friar.  “What do ye thus equipped and so far from home?”

“Home have I none, henceforth, O my father.”

“Ah!  What then of thy wife, Truda—­of thy little son?”

“Dead, my father.  Red Pertolepe’s men slew them this day within the green.  So, when I had buried them, I took my axe and left them with God:  yet shall my soul go lonely, methinks, until my time be come.”

Then Friar Martin reached out his hand and laid it upon Walkyn’s bowed head:  and, though the hand was hard and toil-worn, the touch of it was ineffably gentle, and he spake with eyes upraised to heaven: 

“O Christ of Pity, look down upon this stricken soul, be Thou his stay and comfort.  Teach him, in his grief and sorrow, to pity the woes of others, that, in comforting his fellows, he may himself find comfort.”

Now when the prayer was ended he turned and looked upon the others, and, beholding Beltane in his might and glittering mail, he spake, saluting him as one of rank.

“Sir Knight,” said he, “do these men follow thee?”

“Aye, verily,” cried the archer, “that do I in sooth—­Verbum sat sapienti—­good friar.”

“Not so,” growled Roger, “’tis but a pestilent archer that seeketh but base hire.  I only am my lord’s man, sworn to aid him in his vow.”  “I also,” quoth Walkyn, “an so my lord wills?”

“So shall it be,” sighed Beltane, his hand upon his throbbing brow.

“And what have ye in mind to do?”

“Forsooth,” cried Giles, “to fight, good friar, manibus pedibusque.”

“To obey my lord,” said Roger, “and speak good Saxon English.”

“To adventure my body in battle with joyful heart,” quoth Walkyn.

“To make an end of tyranny!” sighed Beltane.

“Alas!” said the friar, “within this doleful Duchy be tyrants a many, and ye are but four, meseemeth; yet if within your hearts be room for pity—­follow me, and I will show you a sight, mayhap shall nerve you strong as giants.  Come!”