and most treacherous baron, Sir John of Wortham, who has already begun to harry some of the outlying lands, and has driven off, I hear, many heads of cattle.  It is a quarrel which will have to be fought out sooner or later, and the sooner the better, say I. Although I am no man of war, and love looking after my falcons or giving food to my dogs far more than exchanging hard blows, yet would I gladly don the buff and steel coat to aid in levelling the keep of that robber and tyrant, Sir John of Wortham.”

“Thanks, good Hubert,” said the lad.  “I must not stand gossiping here.  The news you have told me, as you know, touches me closely, for I would not that harm should come to the forest men.”

“Let it not out, I beseech thee, Cuthbert, that the news came from me, for temperate as Sir Walter is at most times, he would, methinks, give me short shift did he know that the wagging of my tongue might have given warning through which the outlaws of the Chase should slip through his fingers.”

“Fear not, Hubert; I can be mum when the occasion needs.  Can you tell me farther, when the bands now gathering are likely to set forth?”

“In brief breathing space,” the falconer replied.  “Those who first arrived I left swilling beer, and devouring pies and other provisions cooked for them last night, and from what I hear, they will set forth as soon as the last comer has arrived.  Whichever be their quarry, they will try to fall upon it before the news of their arrival is bruited abroad.”

With a wave of his hand to the falconer the boy started.  Leaving the road, and striking across the slightly undulated country dotted here and there by groups of trees, the lad ran at a brisk trot, without stopping to halt or breathe, until after half an hour’s run he arrived at the entrance of a building, whose aspect proclaimed it to be the abode of a Saxon franklin of some importance.  It would not be called a castle, but was rather a fortified house, with a few windows looking without, and surrounded by a moat crossed by a drawbridge, and capable of sustaining anything short of a real attack.  Erstwood had but lately passed into Norman hands, and was indeed at present owned by a Saxon.  Sir William de Lance, the father of the lad who is now entering its portals, was a friend and follower of the Earl of Evesham; and soon after his lord had married Gweneth the heiress of all these fair lands—­given to him by the will of the king, to whom by the death of her father she became a ward—­Sir William had married Editha, the daughter and heiress of the franklin of Erstwood, a cousin and dear friend of the new Countess of Evesham.