“I will swear it,” whispered Anthony in the darkness.

Again Robin sighed in a long, shuddering breath.  Anthony could hear him tremble with cold and pain.

“Well,” he said, “my father will leave the Church next Easter.  He is tired of paying fines, he says.  And he has bidden me to come with him to Matstead Church.”

There was dead silence.

“I went to tell Marjorie to-day,” whispered Robin.  “She has promised to be my wife some day; so I told her, but no one else.  She has bidden me to leave Matstead for Easter, and pray to God to show me what to do afterwards.  Can you help me, Anthony?”

He was seized suddenly by the arms.

“Robin....  No ... no!  It is not possible!”

“It is certain.  I have never known my father to turn from his word.”

* * * * *

From far away in the wild woods came a cry as the two stood there.  It might be a wolf or fox, if any were there, or some strange night-bird, or a woman in pain.  It rose, it seemed, to a scream, melancholy and dreadful, and then died again.  The two heard it, but said nothing, one to the other.  No doubt it was some beast in a snare or a-hunting, but it chimed in with the desolation of their hearts so as to seem but a part of it.  So the two stood in silence.  The house was quiet now, and most of those within it upon their beds.  Only, as the two knew, there still sat in silence within the little wainscoted parlour, with his head on his hand and a glass of muscadel beside him—­he of whom they thought—­the father of one and the friend and host of the other....  It was not until this instant in the dark and to the quiet, with the other lad’s hands still gripped on to his arms, that this boy understood the utter shame and the black misery of that which he had said, and the other heard.

CHAPTER II

I

There were excuses in plenty for Robin to ride abroad, to the north towards Hathersage or to the south towards Dethick, as the whim took him; for he was learning to manage the estate that should be his one day.  At one time it was to quiet a yeoman whose domain had been ridden over and his sown fields destroyed; at another, to dispute with a miller who claimed for injury through floods for which he held his lord responsible; at a third, to see to the woodland or the fences broken by the deer.  He came and went then as he willed; and on the second day, after Anthony’s visit, set out before dinner to meet him, that they might speak at length of what lay now upon both their hearts.